27 Feb 04

Worldwide mobile phone shipments grew by 29.7% year-over-year in Q4 2003 and increased sequentially by 21.8% to 167.8 million units, according to IDC;s Worldwide Mobile Phone QView.

The fourth quarter of 2003 closed out a particularly strong year for the worldwide mobile phone market as handset sales topped half a billion units shipped for the first time in the market's history.

Shipments grew 23.3% from 432.7 million devices shipped worldwide in 2002 to 533.4 million handsets in 2003.

Contained within the volume of worldwide mobile phone shipments, the market for converged mobile devices, or "smartphones," showed large growth and future promise. In the fourth quarter of 2003, the worldwide converged mobile device market grew 182.3% year-over-year and 77.4% sequentially to 3.7 million units. Strong sales during the fourth quarter drove