Japan's Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association (JEITA) has announced that just under 5.1 million mobile phones were shipped in June - a 2.1% rise year on year. This is the first time the shipments exceeded 5 million since July 2007.

However, the figures showed that the tally for the first half of this year was down 5.2% to 24.92 million hansets.

Of the total, some 73.5% were compatible with the One-Seg digital terrestrial broadcasting service.

"It appears that people bought One-Seg compatible phones to watch the Beijing Olympics on TV while away from home," a spokesman for a cell phone manufacturer told the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper. "The replacement cycle has gotten longer and June's increase [in shipments] is only a temporary phenomenon."

Source:cellular-news