Mobile phone boom set to continue in 2006

The battle for the mobile handset market numbers have commenced. IDC estimated 825.5 million units were sold in 2005 and now Reuters.com writes that "global shipments of mobile phones soared in 2005 and will continue to grow in 2006 on the back of strong demand from emerging economies, which snapped up half of all handsets last year."

Citing research from Strategy Analytics, "mobile phone shipments grew 19 percent to 810 million units in 2005 and are expected to rise by 15 percent to 930 million units in 2006."

Neil Mawston at Strategy Analytics said, "Booming demand in the southern hemisphere, in India and Africa, drove global mobile phone sales."

Nokia "ended the year with a 34.2 percent market share in the fourth quarter, up slightly from the 33.6 percent in the year-ago quarter."

Motorola "closed the gap with Nokia somewhat, taking a larger 18.3 percent market share in the fourth quarter versus 16.2 percent the year before on the back of its thin RAZR phone, which made up one in every three of its phone sales."

Samsung Electronics's "market share rose slightly to 11.1 percent from 10.7 percent. Its fellow South Korean handset maker, LG Electronics was marginally ahead of Sony Ericsson with both firms at 6.6 percent global market share.