BOSTON - That the mobile phone industry is alive and kicking is yesterday's news. Today's news is that the mobile device industry is thriving as evidenced by a new report, which shows that a record number of phones were shipped in the third quarter of the current year.
On Thursday, Framingham-based technology research firm IDC reported that almost 208.3 million cell phones were shipped in the third quarter ending September 30.
This is a phenomenal increase of 19.1 percent when compared to last year's third quarter figures. This is the first time that third quarter figures topped 200 million. The only time this had happened was in the fourth quarter last year when holiday season sales raked up 205.7 million units.
"Last year, quarterly mobile phone shipments didn't reach 200 million units until the end of the fourth quarter when vendors were keeping the channels' shelves stocked for the holiday rush. As vendors announced new products earlier this year and accelerated their time to market, we've already reached this milestone," said Ramon Llamas at IDC.
IDC said that this phenomenal growth was driven by the new smart phones that were flooding the market in this quarter. But the IDC report did not show the numbers regarding the shipments of smart phones over the traditional mobile phones. All the top five cell phone makers reported a huge fillip in sales. Industry leader Nokia Corp reported 29.6 percent increase in growth as compared to last year's figures. The Finnish company commands a market share of 32 percent, a marginal increase over the 29.4 percent a year ago.
Motorola Inc also posted strong growth thanks to its RAZR series as well as the first iTunes enabled phone, the ROKR. The Schaumburg, Ill.-based Company posted an increase of 66 percent over last year's figures. Samsung has a slightly less growth of 18.1 percent, while LG at 31.4 percent and Sony Ericsson at 29 percent completed the list.
