According to a Gartner report titled, "Dataquest Insight: Market Share for Mobile Devices, 3Q07", worldwide mobile phone sales reached 289 million units in Q3 of 2007, notching a 15 percent rise from the same period last year. And top five vendors increased their market share, and accounted for 81.6 percent of the global market share.

"Even though relatively few models were introduced this quarter, overall sales exceeded expectations. Mobile phone sales were mainly driven by strong performances in Asia/Pacific and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. The third quarter also saw Samsung gain number 2 position, taking advantage of Motorola's continued weak performance," said Carolina Milanesi, research director (Mobile Devices Research) of Gartner, based out of Egham, UK.

Nokia sold 110.2 million units to end users, reaching a market share of 38.1 percent in the third quarter of this year. During this quarter, Nokia not only exhibited the highest year-on-year market share increase, but also raised operating margins thanks to effective cost management and global distribution strategy.

This -- despite average prices of its phones falling from EUR 90 to EUR 82, mainly because a majority of devices sold in this quarter were ultra low cost ones.

Samsung sold 41.8 million units to end users, which helped it reach 2nd position via a well-organized channel inventory. The company's Ultra Edition II series continued to gain momentum in key markets such as Western Europe, where it reached 21 percent market share, its strongest performance in the region.

Motorola's sales into the channel remained weak, and with limited surplus stock, sales to end users were not enough to maintain its number 2 position. Its market share dropped 7.6 percentage points from the third quarter of 2006, relegating the vendor to number 3 place.

Sony Ericsson's positive performance continued in the third quarter of 2007 as sales to end users reached 25.4 million units.

Meanwhile, LG sold 20.5 million units in the third quarter of 2007, and reached a market share of 7.1 percent. LG faced stronger competition in markets such as India, where the code division multiple access (CDMA) market presents a big challenge.

In its report, Gartner also analyzed mobile phone sales in Q3 2007 region-wise.

Accordingly, in Asia Pacific, mobile phone sales rose to 101.8 million units, a 26 percent increase from the third quarter of 2006. Interestingly, India marked largest growth, reaching 24.5 million units during this quarter.

Ann Liang, principal analyst (Mobile Devices Research) of Gartner, said that India's performance was driven by CDMA phones, and fierce competition amongst operators of global systems for mobile communications (GSM) networks.

In Japan, 13.1 million units were sold during the third quarter of 2007 -- a 21.8 percent rise from last year's third quarter.

In markets like Russia and the Ukraine, mobile phone sales moved up slightly compared with previous quarters.

In Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, mobile phone sales reached 49.6 million units in the third quarter of 2007, a 3.5 percent increase from the same period last year. It was observed that in Africa particularly, mobile operators continued to add new subscribers to their networks. Besides, in several countries of the Middle East, sales were found to increase post the month of Ramadan.

In Western Europe, mobile phone sales reached 47.2 million units, a 14.9 percent rise year-on-year.

In Latin America, 32.2 million mobile handsets were sold in the 3rd quarter of 2007. Which accounts for an 8 percent increase as compared to the same quarter last year.

In North America, 45 million mobile handsets were sold to end users in the 3rd quarter of 2007, which is a 10.3 percent rise from the same period in 2006.

Milanesi said that though Q3 2007 was stronger than anticipated, they are confident that sales in Q4 2007 will continue to be strong. A quarter-on-quarter growth of at least 10 percent is expected that would result in worldwide mobile phone sales for 2007 turning out to be in line with their expectations -- 1.134 billion units or slightly higher.

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