2nd quarter of 2008 proves fruitful for global mobile device market

Unlike the first quarter of 2008, the second quarter of this year proves to be beneficial for the mobile phone vendors worldwide. According to the research firm ABI, 301 million units were shipped in this quarter. It positively reaffirms the forecast that the global device market will deliver 13% growth in 2008 and mobile shipment will touch the 1.3 billion units mark.

Despite the slowdown of world economy, the tier one handset vendors enjoyed shipment growth between 15 and 22 percent. Eliminating the inflation woes, consumers in emerging market in Asia, Africa, South America, and Middle East fearlessly signed up smart mobile phones. According to Jake Saunders, ABI Research vice president, “If there is an economic slowdown, no one bothered to tell the mobile device buying public. These healthy gains in net subscriber additions are stimulating replacement and upgrade sales. In developed markets handset purchases tended to be flat, but those consumers who did purchase dug deeper and paid out more for coveted higher-end handsets and smart-phones.” In spite of the turbulence in the global economy the mass market’s attraction with getting the latest and greatest handset shows no sign of weakening.

Nokia continues to be the undisputed leader in the handset market. For the first time Nokia surpassed the 40% market share. Samsung was far behind at the second place with 15.2% share. Motorola and LG are too close to each other. Motorola's share is 9.3% slightly ahead of LG's 9.2%. at the end of third quarter of 2008 lg might take over Motorola. At the fifth place was Sony Ericsson with the market share of 8.3%.

Nokia has been continuously refreshing its portfolio in the high-end, mid-tier categories and the ultra-low cost handset market. Nokia’s overall market share is likely to hold.