Nokia reclaims mobile phone market share

Nokia once again owns more than a third of the mobile phone market, according to new research from Gartner.

The Finnish company sold approximately 51 million handsets in the third quarter, or 30.9 per cent of sales worldwide, after falling below 30 per cent for the last two quarters. Its reach, however, is still below the 34.2 per cent it had a year ago.

Gartner analyst Ben Wood called Nokia's gain "an important psychological boost after a disappointing start to the year".

Samsung passed Motorola to take the number two spot, with 13.8 per cent of the market, though the competition between the two is still "neck and neck", according to Wood. Samsung performed particularly well in North America, where it nearly doubled its market share from last quarter. An expanded product range using multiple technologies was key to its success, said Gartner.

Siemens and LG came in fourth and fifth, respectively.

Overall, mobile phone sales were up 26 per cent from last year, to 167 million units worldwide, which looks especially promising as the third quarter tends to be flat while customers hold off on purchases until Christmas.

All geographical regions showed growth over last year except for Japan, where sales dropped 12.8 per cent and vendors are finding it hard to make money due to low margins on 3G phones.

New models and lowered prices drove sales in Western Europe and North America, whereas in emerging Asian markets such as India, China and the Philippines deals on free SIM card replacements as well as reduced prices helped mobile phone makers gain new customers.

The Gartner results are in line with separate research released in November from In-Stat/MDR. Nokia phones accounted for 51.4 million out of 165 million handsets sold worldwide in Q3, meaning it owned 31.2 per cent of the market, said the report.