While the so-called developed nations look evermore likely to slide into a recession, global handset sales could continue to grow driven by increasing demand from emerging countries.
This optimistic view comes from Carolina Milanesi, a research director for mobile devices at Gartner, who claimed that, after another strong year, she expected the growth in sales of mobile devices to decelerate in 2008 and fall to about 10 per cent growth as mature markets become more saturated.
"However, the global mobile devices market will remain relatively immune to a recession in the U.S. and Western Europe as the majority of growth in 2008 will come from emerging markets."
Gartner stated that the mature Western Europe and North American markets remain driven by operator contract terms and replacement cycles and will account for just 30 per cent of the global mobile devices market in 2008. In contrast, developing markets now account for 70 per cent of global mobile sales.
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