Mobile phone sales drop in Q1
Worldwide sales of mobile phones declined by 9.4% in the first quarter of 2009, compared with the same period in 2008. According to Gartner, sales of smartphones grew by 12.7% in the same period.
"There were some signs of a recovery in markets such as North America and China, but overall sales in the first quarter of 2009 registered the biggest quarter on quarter contraction since Gartner began monitoring the market on a quarterly basis in 2001," said Carolina Milanesi, research director for mobile devices at Gartner. "This was also the first time the market contracted year over year during the first quarter."
Nokia continued to lead the mobile phone market, but its share dropped to 36.2% from 39.1% in Q1 2008. Samsung retained second place and improved its market share to 19.1% with sales of 51.4million units. After dropping to the fifth position in Q4 2008, Motorola overtook Sony Ericsson to regain fourth place.
