Worldwide mobile phone sales totalled 269.1 million units in the first quarter of 2009, a 8.6 per cent decrease from the first quarter of 2008, according to Gartner, Inc. Smartphone sales surpassed 36.4 million units, a 12.7 per cent increase from the same period last year.

Nokia continued to lead the mobile phone market, but its share dropped to 36.2 per cent from 39.1 per cent in the first quarter of 2008. Samsung retained second place and improved its market share as its sales totalled 51.4 million units. After dropping to the fifth position in the fourth quarter of 2008, Motorola overtook Sony Ericsson to regain fourth place.

Smartphone sales represented 13.5 per cent of all mobile device sales in the first quarter of 2009, compared with 11 per cent in the first quarter of 2008. Gartner analysts said positive performance by Research In Motion (RIM) and Apple (see Table 2) showed that services and applications are now instrumental to smartphones’ success.

Worldwide Smartphone Sales to End Users in 1Q09 (Thousands of Units)

Symbian accounted for 49.3 per cent of worldwide smartphone operating systems (OS) market share in the first quarter of 2009, down from 56.9 per cent share in the first quarter of 2008. RIM’s smartphone OS market share reached 19.9 per cent in the first quarter of 2009, up from 13.3 per cent share in the first quarter of last year. The iPhone OS accounted for 10.8 per cent of the market, up from 5.3 per cent market share in the first quarter of 2008.

“Much of the smartphone growth during the first quarter of 2009 was driven by touchscreen products, both in midtier and high-end devices,” said Roberta Cozza, principal analyst at Gartner, based in Egham, UK. “‘Touch for the sake of touch’ was enough of a driver in the midtier space, but tighter integration with applications and services around music, mobile e-mail, and Internet browsing made the difference at the high end of the market.”

Source:wirelessandmobilenews