Mobile Phone sales expected to slow down this year

Mobile Phone sales expected to slow down this year

Market research firm IDC has said in a report that they expect the sales of mobile phones to slow down this year. The report claimed that the global sale of mobile phones is growing at a slower rate.

This is primarily because of the shrinking user base of first time buyers. IDC stated in the report that the mobile phone makers shipped 256.4 million units in the first quarter of 2007. This is up 10 percent year on year.

However, the shipments were down 13.8 percent from the previous quarter. This is disappointing considering the year-on-year growth in each quarter of 2006 was over 20 percent.

Nokia continues to head the chart with 91.1 million units shipped in the first quarter of the year. This is up 21.3% compared to last year.

Motorola came second with shipments of 45.4 million units, down 1.5 percent. Samsung had shipments of 34.8 million mobile phones. They showed an improvement of 20 percent compared to last year.