Mobile phone sales on rise thanks to India
More than 1.15 billion mobile phones were sold in previous year, a 16 per cent increase from 990.9 million in 2006, according to figures from Gartner.
The growth was driven mostly by rising markets, especially India and China. According to Carolina Milanesi, research director for mobile devices for Gartner, these markets saw many people buying their first phone.
However, the sales should slow down to around 10 per cent growth as mature markets became more saturated, she added.
Commenting on the effects of recession, she said that the world market would remain relatively immune as “the majority of growth for 2008 will come from emerging markets.”
“The mature North America and Western Europe markets are driven by operator contract terms and replacement cycles and will account for only 30 per cent of the global mobile devices market in 2008,” said Milanesi.
Meanwhile for the Asia Pacific region, 112 million handsets were sold in the fourth quarter of 2007, representing 9.6 per cent growth over the previous quarter. Over the holiday season, operators and distributors offered a wide choice of mobile phone options at reasonable prices tempting new users to sign up to service plans.
“Driving factors for growth of emerging markets in Asia/Pacific included huge numbers of new subscribers, lower-priced phones based on wideband code division multiple access (WCDMA) technology, as well as ultra-low-cost CDMA and GSM phones,” said Ann Liang, Gartner principal research analyst for mobile terminals.
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