Gartner says 104 m handsets were shipped in Q3
"This is only the second time ever that the third quarter has realized mobile terminal sales volume in excess of 100 million units," said Bryan Prohm, senior analyst with the Mobile Communications Worldwide research group for Gartner Dataquest. "The positive momentum generated during the third quarter of 2002 seems well positioned to carry over into the fourth quarter of 2002, when a wave of innovative mobile terminal models are expected to become widely available."
Nokia further distanced itself from its competition in the third quarter, as its worldwide market share grew to 35.9%. Nokia was able to break through the 50 percent market share barrier in the Western European market, as well as the larger Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) regional market.
Motorola saw its global market share position decline during the third quarter to 14.4%, in large part because of critical delays in the availability of two new models - the T720 and C330 - which were expected to ship in volume in the early part of the quarter.
Samsung had another strong quarter, as its global market share surpassed 10 %. Siemens and Sony Ericsson had market shares of 7.8% and 4.8% respectively.
In mature markets, such as Western Europe, mobile phone manufacturers are facing more challenges in motivating users to purchase new phones. "The highly penetrated nature of the Western European market means that future mobile terminals sales growth must now come from replacement purchases," said Ben Wood, senior analyst for Gartner Dataquest in Europe. "The combination of color, cameras and content will drive this replacement cycle in the next eighteen months. Mobile terminal manufacturers will need to continually innovate to avoid a Western European market characterized by cyclical demand in coming years."
"Mass-market acceptance of emerging handset features such as color screens and polyphonic sound may well prove to be merely short-term catalysts for replacement sales," Prohm said. "While double-digit growth is returned to the mobile terminal market, vendors will need to be increasingly flexible and even revolutionary in their approach to the market in order to secure the loyalties of an ever more fickle end-user, and carriers with shifting priorities."