Motorola closing the gap with Nokia

Motorola is gaining ground on Nokia, the global market leader in mobile handset sales reveals the latest handset sales tracking report by the US-based Strategy Analytics. According to the report, if the two market leaders maintained their current growth rates, Motorola could "potentially" overtake its Finnish rival next year.

According to latest sales figures, Finland's Nokia had one-third of overall handset sales in the second quarter of 2006, with sales of 78.4 million — a rise of 29 per cent.

Its market leadership is attributed to Nokia's early introduction of a range of low cost products in the emerging Asian markets.
Manufacturer Market share
Nokia: 33.3%
Motorola: 22.1%
Samsung: 11.2%
Sony Ericsson: 6.7%
LG: 6.5%
Others: 20.3%
Source: Strategy Analytics

Motorola's sales rose 53 per cent and enabled it to increase its market share by 2 per cent to 22 per cent — nearly twice the sales of Samsung, the third ranked mobile handset supplier.

Motorola's Razr, Slvr and Pebl handsets have pushed its sales to 51.9 million handsets.

According to the US-based market research firm, 235 million mobile phones were shipped worldwide in Q2 2006, registering an annual growth rate of 26 per cent.