Mobile market slump is not over yet

The mobile phone market in Western Europe may still be declining but it has improved since the last quarter.

Although vendors shipped six per cent less handsets than they did compared to the same period last year, it is a lot better than the 14 per cent decline seen in the previous quarter, according to IDC.

However, the dip in the market will still take a while to recover fully, claims the analyst firm.

Francisco Jeronimo, European mobile devices research manager at IDC, said in a statement: "The first six months of the year were very challenging to both vendors and operators in Western Europe. The market was hit hard by the financial crisis, and demand mobile for phones slumped as never experienced before."

He added: "Despite the slight improvement in the second quarter of 2009, we will continue to see negative growth throughout the coming quarters, with full market recovery being seen only in 2011."

There was good news for smartphones as they saw what IDC called a "healthy increase" of 25 per cent in shipments reaching 8.8 million units this quarter. Yet traditional handsets dropped by 12 per cent to 33.2 million units.

Although smartphones are helping boost the market, the handsets only account for 21 per cent of all shipments. As a result, IDC has predicted a full year decline of 10 per cent in the market with smartphones not being enough to prop it up.

The report also showed Korean phone manufacturers were outselling the Scandinavians for the first time.

Although Nokia continues to be the leader with a 36.3 per cent market share, Samsung and LG put together shipped more handsets to Western Europe, with Samsung taking 28.9 per cent market share, encroaching on Nokia's lead.