Nokia dominated mobile phone sales in 2006

Nokia dominated mobile phone sales in 2006

Market research firm Gartner said in a statement that the global mobile phone sales in the world markets fell just short of a billion units in 2006.

The market saw sales exceeding 990.8 million units last year. This is an improvement from sales of 816.6 million in 2005.

The milestone could not be touched as the sales growth was slower in the last quarter of the year Gartner said. This quarter accounted for sales of 284.2 million units.

Nokia as expected was the market leader with a 36.2% market share. They have improved their market share in 2006 by around 2.3% over 2005. The company managed to lead the market despite being criticized for not having many slim phones which were rather popular during the period.

Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi had this to say about their research report: “Strong low-cost product offerings in the emerging markets, as well as feature rich products in the mature market, proved to be the right combination for Nokia in 2006.”

World’s second largest mobile phone maker Motorola had a 21.1% market share in 2006. This is up from 17.7% in 2005. Other major players were Samsung, 11.8%; Sony Ericsson, 7.4%; LG, 6.3%; and BenQ, 2.4%.