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Is the bloom off the rosy market for mobile phones? Probably not. But recent worldwide sales figures from Gartnershould raise a yellow flag in the market. According to the technology research company, 419.1 million mobilephones were sold in the world during the calendar quarter ending inMarch. That's a two percent drop from the same period in 2011 andthe first time there's been a sales decline in the market since2009, it said. The slip was largely due to a sales slowdown in the Far East,explained Anshul Gupta, a principal research analyst at Gartner inthe United Kingdom. The first quarter, traditionally the strongest quarter forAsia which is driven by Chinese New Year, saw a lack of newproduct launches from leading manufacturers, and users delayedupgrades in the hope of better smartphone deals arriving later inthe year," he said in a statement . For consumers, especially those buying off-brand phones, the salesslump could be good news. That's because so-called "white box"phone makers were unable to adjust their production runs during thequarter, resulting in inventory backlogs. "Gartner expects some ofthis volume to be sold during the next couple of quarters, becausethe channel is likely to lower the prices to dispose of the stock,"the research firm predicted. While Gartner expects sales to pick up as the year progresses, it'sshaving 20 million units off its sales projections for the year,according to another of the firm's analysts, Annette Zimmermann. Developments Gartner expects to perk up sales later in the yearinclude the continued rollout of 3G phones by local and regionalmanufacturers in China and introduction of handsets in the Westbased on new versions of Android and Windows, as well as theanticipated introduction of a new iPhone model from Apple. Samsung was a clear winner during the quarter, Gartner noted. Itknocked Nokia off the top spot it has held in the market since1998, selling 86.6 million handsets and snatching 20.7 percent ofthe global market. It also regained the title of the world's numberone smartphone maker from Apple, with sales of 38 million units.What's more, it became the number one maker of Android smartphones,selling 40 percent of the handsets for that platform. No othermaker has more than 10 percent of that market, Gartner noted. During the period, Samsung's and Apple's grip on the smartphonemarket continued to rise, the research firm said. Together, thepair owned 49.3 percent of the market, compared to 29.3 percentduring the same period a year ago. Gartner also reported that the market share of worldwide smartphonesales held by phones based on Google's Android operating systemincreased dramatically over the previous year, to 56.1 percent from36.4 percent. The smartphone market has become highly commoditized anddifferentiation is becoming a challenge for manufacturers, Gartnersaid. This is particularly true for smartphones based on theAndroid OS, where a strong commoditization trend is at work andmost players are finding it hard to break the mould," added Gupta. Follow freelance technology writer John P. Mello Jr. and Today@PCWorld on Twitter. The e-commerce company in China offers quality products such as Asian Hair Wigs Manufacturer , Sports Fan Wigs Manufacturer, and more. For more , please visit Dog Rain Coats today!
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