Friday, November 24, 2006

Nokia emerges as mobile phone leader

The Finnish group Nokia was the world's leading provider of mobile telephones in the third quarter, capturing 35.1 percent of the market after 32.5 percent in the same period last year, a study by the Gartner institute has revealed.

The US firm Motorola was in second place, with market share of 20.6 percent, up from 18.7 percent a year earlier.

Samsung of South Korea saw its share of the world market fall to 12.2 percent from 12.5 in third quarter 2005.

Overall, worldwide sales of mobile phones rose 21.5 percent to 251 million units in the third quarter. Gartner foresaw total sales this year of 986 million units.

The most dynamic region in the third quarter was Asia-Pacific, with sales of 80.8 million units, a 54.7 percent increase, and notably in emerging market countries such as India, Indonesia and the Philippines.

But in Japan mobile sales fell 4.7 percent to 10.7 million units.

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