Worldwide Mobile Phone Sales To Fall In 2009 Says Gartner

The ongoing economic downturn has apparently quashed the mobile phones sales growth in third quarter of this year, and the market is expected to shrink next year, research firm Gartner Inc. says. 

With around 309 million mobile handsets sold, the third quarter has marked a 6 percent growth from last year, but it is far less than the 16 percent growth observed in the same quarter for last year, the research firm stated. 

Gartner attributes this decline in sales growth in third quarter to a number of reasons including, lower sales of mobile devices than what were forecasted, insufficient supply of popular mobile devices, and lack of device news. 

Carolina Milanesi, a Gartner analyst, said in a statement, “It is too early to say how long the economic climate will impact the devices market, but we expect market conditions to remain challenging through at least the first half of 2009”, and the handset sales growth is likely to decline to single-digit in next year. 

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The research firm further claimed that the global economic crunch has reduced sales-growth in both rich and poor countries, with Japan and Western Europe being affected the most, with lower unit sales than that of last year. 

However, Asia-Pacific region has shown impressive growth, and sales of mobile phones went up in Eastern Europe, Americas, Africa and the Middle-East, Gartner added.