Economic Downturn Sucks Mobile Phone Sales
Economic slowdown hits cell phone sales badly because of the fact that consumers are taking longer time to replace the handsets, as per Gartner. Although, there is a significant growth of cell phone sales in the Asia Pacific region as well as Eastern Europe and America, Western Europe and Japan were hit hardest.
Handset sales worldwide grew 6 percent in the third quarter which is less than half of the 16 percent growth during the third quarter of 2007, as per Gartner. Unit shipments of phones grew to more than 308.5 million in the quarter from 291.1 million in the third quarter of 2007. Gartner also predicts that the worldwide sales may go down between 1 percent to 4 percent in 2009 compared to 2008.
The sales of Apple iPhone and new Research in Motion BlackBerry models are the main drivers for growth in North America, which was up 4.5 percent in the quarter, according to Gartner. The economy also lowered sales by Nokia, Gartner said. Although market share of Nokia gained to 38.2 percent and saw sales rise from about 110 million units to nearly 118 million. Samsung, the number-two vendor, increased its sales by 26.3 percent and its market share from 14.4 percent to 17.1 percent.
Source: PCWorld
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