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Dec. 19, 2008

By most counts, 2008 was a fairly good year for mobile handset sales, as about 1.21 billion units shipped this year.

These numbers are higher by about up 7.32 percent when compared to 2007, and aren't so bad when you consider that we are now in an important recession, and that things will probably get a lot worse in the next 12 months of 2009.

But overall, the global wireless and cell phone industry will sell less than 2.3 percent fewer devices next year.

IDC still predicts that sales will rebound by close to 8 percent in 2010, nevertheless.

In the U.S. alone, the smartphone market grew an unexpected 75.8 percent this year, but is slated to grow only slightly more than 3 percent in 2009, IDC said.

So-called feature phone sales dropped by almost 10 percent this year and will decrease another 11.7 percent in 2009, the research firm said.

IDC analyst Ryan Reith said that mobile phone sales are even dropping for low-end phones in China and India as well. But the market’s limited growth will mean lower prices for consumers, he added.

Various announcements from component makers such as MediaTek, Qualcomm and Texas Instruments were an ominous sign. Particularly revealing is the large gap between smartphones and traditional mobile phones.

Smartphones such as Apple's iPhone and RIM's BlackBerry units increased over 26.7 percent in 2008, and now account for about 12.2 percent of all mobile phones sold globally, while growth is expected to continue at a slower rate of less 9 percent next year.

Feature phones grew less than 5 percent this year and that market should drop by a little less than 4 to 5 percent next year, IDC said.

The wireless handset segment will see a limited rebound in 2010, Reith added, although he failed to predict any number estimate.

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Source: IDC Research.