According to IDC’s Worldwide Mobile Phone QView, worldwide mobile phone shipments grew by 21.2% year-over-year in 3Q03 and increased sequentially by 14.0% to 130.1 million units.

Nokia maintained its top position in the market while LG Electronics regained the number 5 spot from Sony Ericsson.

In addition to the market's impressive year-over-year growth of 21.2%, the top 5 mobile phone vendors continued to gain back market share after a dip in 1Q03. After dropping from 77.3% of the market in 4Q02 to 71.4% in 1Q03, the top 5 vendors have reclaimed much of their lost market share in 3Q03 with 76.6% of the market.

At the same time, 3Q03 was the first quarter of 2003 during which the top 5 vendors all posted positive sequential growth. However, with a growing number of vendors from Asia entering the worldwide market, it remains to be seen if the top vendors can maintain their hold on market-share.
“Consumer demand continued to build across all market segments in the third quarter, driving healthy performances for the top 5 vendors,” said David Linsalata, analyst, in IDC’s Mobile Devices program.

"The proliferation of cameraphones and color phones into the worldwide market continues to spark consumer interest in new handsets and spur the mobile phone market to higher growth."

Nokia – Nokia maintained its number 1 spot this quarterwith a sequential increase of 11.2% and continued to strengthen itspresence in the U.S. and global CDMA markets. However, due to theincreasing market size, Nokia's market share decreased by just under apercent to 35.0%. Of particular note is the launch of the NokiaN-Gage, a gaming-centric device launched worldwide in the beginning ofOctober.

Motorola – After experiencing a drop of over 5% inshipments in 2Q03, Motorola posted a 27.8% sequential increase inshipments, bringing its market share up 1.7% to 15.5% of the marketand distancing itself slightly from Samsung.

Samsung – Continuing on its success from the previousquarter, Samsung increased its market share from 10.5% in 2Q03 to11.5% in 3Q03 with an increase of 3 million shipments to a total of 15million mobile phones. Samsung attributes its increase to strongdemand for its high-end handsets with color screens, cameras andcamcorder functions.

Siemens – Siemens' shipments grew 39.5% sequentially in3Q03, easily solidifying itself as the number 4 vendor worldwide.

LG Electronics – Rising sharply on the strength of its CDMAand GSM shipments overseas, LGE re-entered IDC's top 5 list as itboosted its market share to 5.8%, just beating out Sony Ericsson at5.5%.
 

Notes: Vendor shipments are branded shipments and exclude OEM sales forall vendors.