Global Cellphone Shipments Top 1 Bil. Units for 1st Time in 2006
By Kyodo News International, Tokyo
Jan. 26–NEW YORK — Global shipments of mobile phones topped 1 billion units for the first time in 2006 mainly due to brisk sales in emerging markets in Asia, a U.S. research firm said Thursday.
Worldwide cellphone shipments totaled 1.02 billion units in 2006, up 22.5 percent from the previous year, International Data Corp. said.
Shipments to emerging economies in the Asia-Pacific region, Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America surpassed those to mature markets, such as Japan, North America and Western Europe, it said.
“IDC expects this trend to continue as mature markets reach saturation and emerging markets, with much lower teledensity, provide ample opportunity for handset vendors to attract first-time users,” IDC analyst Ramon Llamas said in a statement.
“In addition, the time to set up a mobile network is much shorter and less expensive than the time to set up a landline network, propelling cellphone shipments further,” Llamas said.
Finland’s Nokia Corp. was the largest cellphone supplier in 2006 with a market share of 34.1 percent, shipping 347.5 million handsets.
Motorola Inc. of the United States came second with shipments of 217.4 million units for a 21.3 percent market share, followed by South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co. with shipments of 118.0 million units for an 11.6 percent share.
Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB, a joint venture between Japan’s Sony Corp. and Sweden’s Ericsson AB, ranked fourth with a 7.3 percent share. Its shipments totaled 74.8 million units.
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