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Newsletter 43 Nov 2008
Mobile sales down, but smartphones more resilient
It’s hardly a surprise, but mobile phone sales like most others have suffered as a result of the slowing world economy. According to consultancy IDC, the mobile market in Western Europe saw a distinct downturn in the third quarter of this year, falling 8 per cent from the same quarter last year. Nevertheless, the total of 45.8 million handsets was up 5.1 per cent over the previous quarter of this year. IDC says consumers are delaying replacing handsets, especially in countries where penetration is more than 100 per cent. However, the market for “converged mobile devices” or smartphones grew 58 per cent year on year and 17.9 per cent sequentially. IDC says the release of the iPhone 3G earlier in the summer in 15 European countries raised interest in converged mobile devices as a whole, among consumers as well as enterprises. 
Nokia remained the market leader with a 34.9 per cent market share, but continued to lose ground to Samsung, which has a market share of 28.1 per cent. Sony Ericsson came third with a market share of 15.3 per cent, followed by Motorola and LG Electronics.
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