Mobile phone market shows signs of recovery

Market research firm IDC said that the market for mobile phones worldwide showed some growth in the third quarter. And there’s better times ahead.

Ramon Llamas, senior research analyst at IDC, said: “During the third quarter we saw a number of channels promoting older devices at significantly lower prices. For many, this was enough to spur demand and push volumes higher.”

He said: “The mobile phone market is showing the first signs of improvement since the onset of the economic crisis. Now that we have moved into the fourth quarter, vendors are setting the stage for further gains by launching their flagship devices to meet pent-up demand.”

Year on year growth is still negative, with shipments down six percent compared to last year, but up 5.6 percent compared to the last calendar quarter.  Shipments amounted to 287.1 million units in the third quarter.

Nokia stays on top in terms of volumes and market sahre, followed by Samsung. Nokia’s growth, however, fell by eight percent year on year, while Samsung grew by 15.9 percent. The following table describes units in millions, and exclude OEM sales.


Q309 Share Q308 Share Growth
YoY
Nokia 108.5 37.8% 117.9 38.6% -8%
Samsung 60.2 21% 52 17% 15.9%
LG 31.6 11% 23 7.5% 37.4%
Sony
Eric.
14.1 4.9% 25.7 8.4% -45.2%
Motorola 13.6 4.7% 25.4 8.3% -46.4%
Others 59.1 20.6% 61.5 20.1% -3.9%
Total 287.1 100% 305.4 100% -6%