Mobile handset growth set to slow

Demand for new mobile phones is set to drop to single digits growth figures in 2008, despite 11.6 per cent growth last quarter.

Data from analyst group IDC shows handset demand slowing, despite more than 300 million handsets being sold in the fourth quarter, including the all-important Christmas period.

"Over the last three years, growth in the industry during the holiday quarter has fluctuated from 18-30 per cent, and this past quarter we saw it drop to 11.6 per cent," IDS senior analyst Ryan Reith said in a statement.

"The expectation that the market would maintain the level of growth it saw over the last three years was unrealistic. We expect growth to be in the single digits throughout 2008, and most likely for years to follow."

During 2007, 1.144 billion phones were sold worldwide, 12.4 per cent more than a year earlier.

Yesterday, Nokia reported fourth-quarter handset shipments that were higher than the combined total of its closest three competitors, Samsung, Motorola and Sony Ericsson.

The company produced 1.5 million phones per day on average and said it could have manufactured even more had it not been for component shortages.

IDC put Nokia's fourth-quarter market share at 40 per cent, Samsung's at 13.9 per cent, Motorola's at 12.2 per cent, Sony Ericsson's at 9.2 per cent. LG is fifth with 7.1 per cent market share.

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