Nokia sales remain strong

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Nokia accounted for 36.9 per cent of worldwide mobile phone sales in the second quarter of 2007 according to figures from Gartner.

Nokia's performance is expected to continue in the second half of the year as the company grows its share of sales in emerging markets as well as in mature ones.

"Nokia's devices business seems to be doing everything right at the moment" said Carolina Milanesi, research director for mobile devices research at Gartner.

Despite Motorola's decline in sales to end users continuing this quarter, it sold nearly 39.5 million units worldwide and gained second position in the second quarter due to an aggressive pricing strategy.

However, Gartner does not expect the company's market share will return to close to 20 per cent until substantial changes are made to its product portfolio.

Samsung increased to 36.2 million units from 25.7 million units from the second quarter of 2006 as their growth was boosted by its Ultra II family of products.

Sony Ericsson's continued success in the second quarter saw it consolidate its fourth place with nine per cent of the market share. Its improvement in Latin America was a sign that its mid-tier products are proving successful in emerging markets. The popularity of the LG Shine in Western Europe and Asia Pacific helped LG take fourth place with a market share of 6.8 per cent.

Commenting on the fact that sales of mobile phones have gone up worldwide, Milanesi added: "Emerging markets in Africa, Latin America and Asia Pacific continued to fuel the industry's growth.

"More mature markets, such as those in Western Europe and North America, picked up after the expected slowdown in the first quarter.

"With rumours that the iPhone might launch in Europe as early as September, we expect more excitement in this market in the second half of the year".

Latin American handset market sales increased by seven per cent from the same period in 2006 while sales in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa increased five per cent to reach 46 million units in the second quarter of 2007.

In Asia Pacific, there was a 40.7 per cent increase from the second quarter of 2006. While sales in China continued to grow rapidly and Australia outperformed other markets with strong sales of replacement phones, Japanese sales to end users decreased 17.5 per cent from the first quarter of 2007.

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