Worldwide Mobile Phone Sales Declined 6 Per Cent, Smartphones Grew 27 Per Cent in Second Quarter 2009, Gartner Reports

admin — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 09:58:44 +0000

Inventory Destocking Continues with 13.9 Million Units Shed by the Channel

Egham, UK, August 12, 2009 -- Worldwide mobile phone sales totalled 286.1 million units in the second quarter of 2009, a 6.1 per cent decrease from the second quarter of 2008, according to Gartner, Inc. (NYSE: IT). Smartphone sales surpassed 40 million units, a 27 per cent increase from the same period last year, representing the fastest-growing segment of the mobile-devices market (see Table 2).

"Despite the challenging market, some devices sold well as consumers who would usually have purchased standard midrange devices either cut back to less expensive handsets or moved up the range to get more features for their money," said Carolina Milanesi, research director at Gartner. "Touchscreen and qwerty devices remained a major driver for replacement sales and benefited manufacturers with strong, touch-focused midtier devices. However, the decline in average selling price (ASP) accelerated in the first half of the year and particularly affected manufacturers that focus on midtier and low-end devices, where margins are already slim." » read more »

NTT DoCoMo Unveils "Raku-Raku PHONE Basic" Handset

admin — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 10:20:29 +0000

TOKYO, JAPAN, March 6, 2007 --- NTT DoCoMo, Inc. and its eight regional subsidiaries unveiled today Raku-Raku PHONE Basic, the newest handset in the Raku-Raku PHONE series for people interested primarily in user-friendly handsets equipped with basic functions.

The model boasts an attractive design created by Kenya Hara, renowned graphic designer and art director of popular brandless goods manufacturer Muji, in collaboration with handset maker Fujitsu and DoCoMo.

Special features include "Slow Voice", which improves comprehensibility through embedded software that slows the other person's voice speed, and "Clear Voice" noise-detection, which automatically adjusts voice and ringtone volume according to surrounding noise level. Enhanced "Read Aloud" audibly announces the name of the caller or e-mail sender and provides audio readouts of i-mode™ pages, while "Simple Mail Generation" offers preset messages for quick replies to e-mails. » read more »