The global economic downturn had a significant impact on the mobile phone industry as worldwide mobile phone sales to end users totalled 314.7 million units in the fourth quarter of 2008, a 4.6 percent decline from the fourth quarter of 2007, according to a report by Gartner. Of the top five mobile phone vendors Nokia, Samsung, LG, Sony Ericsson and Motorola, only Samsung and LG witnessed higher fourth-quarter sales in comparison to 2007. However, the industry did experience growth for the year, with worldwide mobile phone sales to end users surpassing 1.22 billion units in 2008, a 6 percent increase over 2007 sales. Nokia increased its market share last year to 38.6 percent of unit sales from 37.8 in 2007, and Samung grew to 16.3 percent from 13.4. Motorola kept its third place, but saw its market share drop from 14.3 percent in 2007 to 8.7 percent last year, just ahead of LG's 8.4 percent. Sony Ericsson's market share dropped to 7.6 percent from 8.8. Gartner expects inventory reductions to continue through the first half of the year, with demand not expected to stabilise until 2010.
