Chicago (IL) - Yesterday, mobile phone research data from ABI Research demonstrated that sale rates of handsets were slowing throughout 2008. They also show, however, that smartphone-like devices continue to gain in popularity.


ABI said that last year 1.21 billion handsets shipped for an annual growth rate of 5.4 percent. The growth from the previous year, however, was nearly three times that amount at 16 percent. This change is reflected in both halves of 2008. In the first half, mobile handset shipments were around 14 percent year to year. In the second half, the third quarter slowed to 8 percent, before falling to a negative 10 percent rate for the final quarter of the year - due in part to the slowing economy.

"Sheer fear sapped the confidence of consumers, enterprises and corporate users across the board," said Jake Saunders, Asia-Pacific Vice-President of ABI Research. Among individual manufacturers, Nokia lead with the most market share, while Samsung was the largest gainer in market share. Motorola, however, had the steepest declines.

Smartphones, while also caught up in this downturn, did show their own signs of success, however. Both RIM (Blackberry) and Apple (iPhone) boldly moved up in the market-share stakes with growths of 0.9% and 0.8%, respectively.