Skip to main content

Over 300 Million Mobile Phones Shipped Q4

The worldwide mobile phone market passed a new milestone in shipments by recording over 300 million devices shipped during the fourth quarter, while experiencing slower year over year growth for 2007.

According to IDC's Worldwide Mobile Phone Tracker, the 334 million handsets shipped during the holiday quarter was a new record for the industry, and was up 15.3 percent over last quarter.

For the entire year, total shipments reached 1,144.1 million units in 2007 with 12.4 percent overall growth. Nokia once again led vendors in shipments throughout the year, although some shakeup in the vendor rankings did occur. Samsung, which had been the number three vendor in the industry, surpassed Motorola during 2007 to capture the number two spot.

"Give credit to Samsung for taking the number two position worldwide from Motorola," says Ramon Llamas, research analyst with IDC's Mobile Devices Technology and Trends team. "For the past few years, Samsung's growth kept pace with the market, but in 2007 the company beat the market almost by a factor of four."

Samsung capitalized on replacement handset opportunities in the United States and Europe with a steady stream of mid-range and high-end devices while Motorola spent much of the year addressing inventory challenges across EMEA and Asia.

Now that Motorola is implementing a new handset strategy, it will be interesting to watch the hotly contested number two position in 2008 -- particularly amid reports that Motorola could decide to entirely exit the consumer cell phone sector by divesting this troubled business unit.

"Over the last three years, growth in the industry during the holiday quarter has fluctuated from 18 to 30 percent, and this past quarter we saw it drop to 11.6 percent," said Ryan Reith, senior research analyst with IDC.

"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."

Popular posts from this blog

Global Digital Business and IT Consulting Outlook

Across the globe, CEOs and their leadership teams continue to seek information and guidance about planned Digital Transformation initiatives and the most effective enterprise organization change management practices. Worldwide IT and Business Services revenue will grow from $1.13 trillion in 2022 to $1.2 trillion in 2023 -- that's a 5.7 percent year-over-year growth, according to the latest market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). The mid-term to long-term outlook for the market has also increased -- the five-year CAGR is forecast at 5.2 percent, compared to the previous 4.9 percent. Digital Sevices & Consulting Market Development IDC has raised the growth projection despite a weak economic outlook, because of vendor performances across 2022, growth indicators from adjacent markets, increased government funding, and inflation impacts. The actual 2022 market growth was 6.7 percent (in constant currency), which was 87 basis points higher than forecast last year, alth

Mobile Device Market Still Awaiting Recovery

The mobile devices market has experienced three years of unpredictable demand. The global pandemic, geopolitical pressures, supply chain issues, and macroeconomic headwinds have hindered the sector's consistent growth potential. This extremely challenging environment has dramatically affected both demand and supply chains. It has led to subsequent inflationary pressures, leading to a worsening global cost of living crisis suppressing growth and confidence in the sector. In tandem, mobile device industry stakeholders have become more cautious triggering market uncertainties. Mobile Device Market Development Operating under such a backdrop, the development of mobile device ecosystems and vendor landscapes have been impacted severely. Many of these market pressures persisted throughout 2022 and now into 2023, borne chiefly by the smartphone market. According to the latest worldwide market study by ABI Research, worldwide smartphone shipments in 2022 declined 9.6 percent Year-over-Year

Digital Talent Demand Exceeds Supply in Asia-Pac

Even the savviest CEO's desire for a digital transformation advantage has to face the global market reality -- there simply isn't enough skilled and experienced talent available to meet demand. According to the latest market study by IDC, around 60-80 percent of Asia-Pacific (AP) organizations find it "difficult" or "extremely difficult" to fill many IT roles -- including cybersecurity, software development, and data insight professionals. Major consequences of the skills shortage are increased workload on remaining digital business and IT employees, increased security risks, and loss of "hard-to-replace" critical transformation knowledge. Digital Business Talent Market Development Although big tech companies' layoffs are making headlines, they are not representative of the overall global marketplace. Ongoing difficulty to fill key practitioner vacancies is still among the top issues faced by leaders across industries. "Skills are difficul