Mature mobile phone markets picked up in the second quarter of 2007 after a slowdown in the first quarter, according to market analyst Gartner, although there was little respite in terms of market share for Motorola.
Gartner found that despite a slowdown in new connections compared to the first quarter of 007, sales of mobile phones in Western Europe reached 45.4 million units, an 11 per cent increase year-on-year.
"Motorola's difficulties continued this quarter, and the race to take market share from it was wide open, with Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Samsung all benefiting. With rumours that the Phone might launch in Europe as early as September, we expect more excitement in this market in the second half of the year,” said Gartner research director Carolina Milanesi.
Gartner found that Motorola suffered from weak demand from its "rather dated" portfolio, although "aggressive pricing" allowed it to reduce inventory in Western Europe, selling nearly 39.5 million units worldwide in the second quarter of 2007. Motorola’s market share dropped 7.3% from the second quarter of 2006. Gartner does not expect the company’s market share will return to close to 20 per cent until "substantial changes" are made to its product portfolio.
Nokia came out rather better, with average selling prices boosted by the introduction of the N95 and the sales of high end phones in general. It sold nearly 100 million units into the channel in the quarter, giving it a 39.6% share for the quarter.
Boosted by the introduction of its application-orientated Ultra II family of products, Samsung’s sales into the channel were strong in the second quarter of 2007, which saw the vendor take the second position from Motorola. However, with some "inventory overhang" from the first quarter of 2007, Samsung was only
able to sell 36.2 million units, which was not enough to secure the second place in terms of sales to end users.
Sony Ericsson' consolidated its fourth place, with sales reaching 24.3 million units, while LG sold 18.4 million units in the second quarter of 2007 and reached a arket share of 6.8%.