The global mobile phone market has reportedly seen some increase in the third quarter of the ongoing year, although it still remained lower than in the third quarter of last year. IDC’s Worldwide Mobile Phone Tracker shows that the mobile phone shipments in the time frame totaled 287.1 million units all around the world, showing a 6 percent decrease when compared to the same quarter a year ago, though registering a growth of 5.6% from the second quarter 2009.

“The mobile phone market is showing the first signs of improvement since the onset of the economic crisis,” says Ramon Llamas, senior research analyst with IDC's Mobile Devices Technology and Trends team. “During the third quarter, we saw a number of channels promoting older devices at significantly lower prices. For many, this was enough to spur demand and push volumes higher. Now that we have moved into the fourth quarter, vendors are setting the stage for further gains by launching their flagship devices to meet pent-up demand.”

The North American market has seen positive results in the United States, although the Canadian market went down considerably. In Latin America, the mobile phone market has seen a slow growth in the third quarter of the year, due to longer replacement cycles, anemic user demand, and lower subsidies for the handsets. The Western European market has recovered well, with both traditional phones and smartphones seeing high demand and registering growth. The Asia/Pacific region performed weaker than expected, as the total number of shipments went down on a yearly basis.

“Although some regions are still reeling from problems associated with the economic crisis, the third quarter served to cleanse the channel while providing the signs of stability necessary for additional improvement in the fourth quarter,” says Will Stofega, research manager of IDC's Mobile Devices Technology and Trends team. “Despite the outlook for a slower economic recovery, we think vendors should increase R&D spending as well as engage in a broad portfolio review in order to ensure the best competitive stance as the market recovers.”

In the handset maker area, Nokia remains on the first place, with a 37.8 percent market share, while Samsung was placed on the second position with a 21 percent market share. LG Electronics came in third with 11 percent market share, Sony Ericsson was placed fourth with 4.9 percent, while Motorola accounted for 4.7 percent of the market, occupying the fifth position.