Global shipments of mobile phones increase

Unit shipments will rise 10% in 2008.

By Jim Carbone -- Purchasing, 2/27/2008 11:27:00 AM

Worldwide sales of mobile phones increased 16% to 1.15 billion units in 2007, according to researcher Gartner. However, unit growth will slow in 2008 as shipments will rise by about 10%.

“Emerging markets, especially China and India, provided much of the growth as many people bought their first phone,” says Carolina Milanesi, research director for mobile devices at Gartner, based in Egham, U.K.

“In mature markets, such as Japan and Western Europe, consumers’ appetite for feature-laden phones was met with new models packed with television tuners, global positioning satellite (GPS) functions, touch screens and high-resolution cameras,” she says. Milanesi says growth in sales of will decelerate in 2008 and fall to about 10% growth as mature markets become more saturated.

“However, the global mobile devices market will remain relatively immune to a recession in the U.S. and Western European economies as the majority of growth in 2008 will come from emerging markets,” says Milanesi.

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Cell phone shipments rise