The research company Gartner announced that in 2007 the worldwide sales of mobile phones to end users surpassed 1.15 billion units. This represent an increase with 16 percent over 2006, when only 990.0 million phones were sold.

According to Carolina Milanesi, research director for mobile devices at Gartner, the growth was fueled by the sales in the emerging markets.

"Emerging markets, especially China and India, provided much of the growth as many people bought their first phone," said Carolina Milanesi. "In mature markets, such as Japan and Western Europe, consumers' appetite for feature-laden phones was met with new models packed with TV tuners, global positioning satellite (GPS) functions, touch screens and high-resolution cameras."

With a total of 435,453 million phones, Nokia achieved its long-term target of nearly 40 percent, while Motorola gained the second spot with only 164,037 million . Despite some component shortages, Nokia increased its market share sequentially in all regions except North America, which remains a challenging market for the vendor. In emerging markets, products such as the 1110, the 1600 and the 2630 were in demand by consumers, while in mature markets such as Western Europe high-end phones like the N95, N82 and N73 were sought-after devices. The South Korean electronics maker, Samsung, came in third place very close to Motorola with 154,549 million units sold.

Sony Ericsson ended 2007 with another positive performance, growing its market share on a quarterly basis to 9.0 per cent from 8.7 per cent. Its Cyber-shot and Walkman products, such as the K850i, K610i, W910i, K550i and W300i, remained popular among consumers around the world. As Sony Ericsson widens its reach, adding features such as Wi-Fi and GPS, as well as more low-tier products, it will stay competitive in the coming quarters, Gartner said.

LG's mobile phone sales totalled 23.5 million units in the fourth quarter of 2007, maintaining its 7.1 per cent market share despite the increase of more than three million in sales volumes. The success of the Viewty, the Venus and the Voyager helped LG gain brand awareness across the world as well as improve its margins.
The market saw three new entrants into the top ten in the fourth quarter of 2007. These vendors included Research In Motion (RIM), ZTE and Apple. "On one hand, we have aggressive pricing and a focus on emerging markets (ZTE), and on the other, RIM with targeted functions and Apple with brand and design," said Milanesi.

"Phone manufacturers need to continuously adapt their portfolios to respond to operators' demands for open platforms, lower pricing and more personalisation," recommended Ms Milanesi. "They should also try to meet consumers' desires for fashionable, easy-to-use phones."