Monday, December 15, 2003		Feature

India pushes up global cellphone sales

RIDING on the robust growth in Asia-Pacific region, thanks to Indian performance, worldwide mobile phone sales totalled 132.8 million units in the third quarter, a 22 per cent increase from the same period last year, according to Gartner.

The Asia-Pacific region bounced back from SARS and was further buoyed by phenomenal mobile phone sales in India, Gartner says.

"Success in China remains crucial in the region with Motorola holding onto the top spot in the face of strong competition from Nokia," saysd Ann Liang, industry analyst with the mobile communications group for Gartner in Asia-Pacific.

"The mobile terminals market is exhibiting extraordinarily strong growth in 2003, and we believe it could reach half a billion units this year," according to Ben Wood, principal analyst with the mobile communications group for Gartner in Europe.

The competition among the top tier vendors is heating up, and industry leader Nokia’s market share decreased in the third quarter as it faced strong competition from Siemens and Samsung. LG moved into the top five, narrowly pushing Sony Ericsson into sixth position.

"The market is growing on two fronts - we’ve hit a sweet spot for replacement sales in mature markets while emerging markets such as Asia-Pacific and Eastern Europe continue to sign up new subscribers at a phenomenal pace," Wood says.

In the mature markets, colour mobile terminals are a growing proportion of total sales, with the volume of camera phones also increasing. Gartner analysts say the demand for low-cost terminals has also continued and all regions of the world experienced at least 18 per cent growth in the third quarter.

The North America market was driven by replacement sales, as users replaced their handsets in favor of new smaller and in many cases, colour terminals.

"The Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region accounted for 35.5 per cent of the world’s mobile phone sales, fuelled by strong replacement buying in Western Europe.

"This was combined with strong sales in emerging markets such as Eastern Europe, in particular Russia, which saw sales reach 5 million units," Carolina Milanesi, industry analyst for the EMEA mobile communications group for Gartner avers. — UNI