Global mobile phone mkt growth slowed in Q2-survey

By Editor on August 15, 2006 · Leave a Comment

AMSTERDAM, Aug 24 (Reuters) – Growth of the global mobile phone market slowed in the second quarter of 2006, a survey found on Thursday. Sales of mobile phones to consumers totaled 229 million units, an increase of 18.3 percent from the same period last year, which is a slowdown from the 23.8 percent growth in the first quarter, market research group Gartner said in a report. Gartner said the market was still on track to reach 960 million phones in 2006 and 238 million in the third quarter of 2006. Gartner is the only research group to measure sales to end users. Other research groups, which track shipments from vendors to retailers and not to end-users, reported shipments of around 235 million units in the quarter. The slowdown was mainly in the mature markets. “While mobile operators in the mature markets of Western Europe and North America struggled to keep up the customer acquisition growth seen in previous quarters, mobile operators in emerging markets continued to sign up new customers driving handset sales,” said Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi. Gartner’s sales data confirmed the trend identified by rival research groups last month that Motorola Inc. (MOT.N: Quote, Profile, Research) was the biggest market share gainer in the quarter, followed by Nokia (NOK1V.HE: Quote, Profile, Research) and Sony Ericsson (6758.T: Quote, NEWS, Research)(ERICb.ST: Quote, Profile, Research) and that Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. (005930.KS: Quote, Profile, Research), LG Electronics Inc.(066570.KS: Quote, Profile, Research) and BenQ Mobile had lost market share.