Worldwide mobile phone sales grew 17% in first quarter 2010

BANGALORE: Worldwide mobile phone sales to end users totalled 314.7 million units in the first quarter of 2010, a 17 per cent increase from the same period the previous calendar year, according to IT research and advisory firm Gartner, Inc.

Smarpthone sales to end users reached 54.3 million units, an increase of 48.7 per cent from the first quarter of 2009.

"In the first quarter of 2010, smartphone sales to end users saw their strongest year-on-year increase since 2006," said Carolina Milanesi, research vice president at Gartner.

"This quarter saw RIM, a pure smartphone player, make its debut in the top five mobile devices manufacturers and saw Apple increase its market share by 1.2 percentage points. Android's momentum continued into the first quarter of 2010, particularly in North America, where sales of Android-based phones increased 707 per cent year-on-year", she said.

Growth in the mobile devices market was driven by double digit growth of smartphone sales in mature markets, helped by wider product availability as well as mass market price tags.

"Increasing sales of white-box products in some emerging regions, in particular India, also drove sales of mobile phones upward. We expect sales of white-box products to remain very healthy for the remainder of 2010, especially outside of China," said Milanesi.