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Mobile phone sales fall

GPRS wanted

Worldwide mobile phone shipments declined ten per cent year on year for the third quarter. A total of 94.4 million units were shipped for the quarter, down from Q3 2000's 104 million.

Gartner Dataquest says the industry has been buffeted by continued delays in GPRS (General Packet Radio Service - an interim technology on the road to 3G, referred to as 2.5G), as well as the global economic downturn.

Nokia, flogging a slightly older portfolio of phones (although not quite old enough to make Carphone Warehouse's TV ads), showed a drop in shipments, although its share increased nearly three per cent.

Motorola eagerly snapped up any slack, inching its market share up to nearly 16 per cent. Samsung also performed well, pushing past Siemens for fourth place and helped by its TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access) and GSM launches across the Americas.

Ericsson is positioned well for the future, bringing out good new handsets and launching a Sony/Ericsson mobile communications JV this quarter, according to Gartner.

The Western European market, which accounted for a third of annual mobile sales in 1999 and 2000, showed an unexpected decline, contrary to all past trends, although the release does not give figures. ®


Worldwide mobile terminal shipment estimates for 3Q01 (in thousands)
Company 3Q01 shipments 3Q01 market share (%) 3Q00 shipments 3Q00 market share (%)
Nokia 31,552 33.4 32,058 30.6
Motorola 14,770 15.7 13,903 13.3
Ericsson 7,532 8.0 10,100 9.7
Samsung 7,108 7.5 4,506 4.3
Siemens 6,769 7.2 8,966 8.6
Others 26,633 28.2 35,070 33.5
Total Market 94,364 100.0 104,603 100.0

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