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Mobile phone industry rocking this Christmas
Nokia king of the sales...

By Reuters

Published: Wednesday 28 November 2007

Fast growth in the mobile-phone industry - the world's largest consumer electronics sector - is set to continue in the Christmas-sales-fuelled fourth quarter, research company Gartner has said.

All handset vendors combined sold 289 million mobile phones in the third quarter, with strong demand in Asia and Africa lifting sales 15 per cent from one year ago, Gartner said, adding it does not see much changing in the ongoing quarter.

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Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi said: "I think it's going to be a good Christmas [for the mobile phone market], showing growth of 10 to 15 per cent from last year."

Top mobile-phone providers have said they envisage the market will grow more than 10 per cent year on year in the October-to-December period.

Gartner said annual sales were set to reach its earlier forecast of 1.134 billion phones.

Milanesi said Western Europe should see good Christmas sales, helped by new models from major players like Nokia and Sony Ericsson, while robust growth in emerging markets in Africa and Asia was set to continue.

Milanesi said: "India and China are not showing any signs of slowdown."

The main gainer from the surging sales in emerging markets was the world's largest handset maker, Nokia, with a rise to 38.1 per cent of market share in the third quarter, up from 35.1 per cent in the same quarter last year, Gartner said.

With about eight million new customers signing up for mobile phones each month in India alone, the world's leading mobile phone makers are falling over each other to woo first-time buyers with low-priced handsets.

South Korea's Samsung surpassed Motorola with 14.5 per cent of the market, compared with 13.1 per cent for the US company, Gartner said.

Sony Ericsson and LG Electronics also increased their market shares to 8.8 per cent and 7.1 per cent, respectively.

Nokia benefited from demand for ultra-cheap phones in the quarter but it reported superior profit margins.

Nokia's profit margin on mobile phones rose to 22.2 per cent in the quarter, while its best-performing rivals - Samsung and Sony Ericsson - were at 12.3 per cent and 12.6 per cent, respectively.