Mobile phones were shipped at an eye-popping rate during this year’s first quarter, a juicy 10% rise from last year’s numbers at the same period, but not enough to beat the previous quarter.
A new report in today from research house IDC says while the worldwide mobile phone market saw some 256.4 million units ship in the first quarter, that number is 13.8% lower than quarter before.
"The first quarter of 2007 marks the first quarter of slower growth in the mobile phone market, a significant change from the growth exhibited each quarter during all of 2006," states IDC.
It’s not a big surprise, though, that the good times had to stop rolling as fast as they have for the lucrative mobile market. The cell phone industry has seen strong year-on-year growth rates, say analysts, and the slowing from the previous quarter can be attributed to the seasonality of the market. Predictions have been made that as more subscribers are added to the network, there would fewer new subscribers to entice with new equipment, according to the research firm.
"The increase in worldwide phone shipments was driven, in part, by new subscribers in emerging markets and, in part, by replacement sales in mature markets," says Ramon Llamas, research analyst with IDC’s Mobile Devices Technology and Trends group in a statement. "Since basic voice connectivity and affordability are often the key components of demand in emerging markets, device vendors, appropriately, seek to supply low-cost handsets in these markets, which, in turn, has the unfortunate effect of dragging down device ASPs."
The report also says that Samsung was able to benefit from Motorola’s misfortunes by recording a positive sequential growth in the first quarter. Still, the five top-selling mobile phone manufacturers cited by IDC are Nokia–which holds 35.5% of the market share, Motorola, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and LG Electronics.
