The Western European cell phone market stirs to life

The guys at IDC report that the Western European cell phone market has stirred to life after shrinking for 15 consecutive months. It shows vital signs once again and grew 5% in Q3 2009 as compared to the same period of 2008.

BlackBerry handsets are still on their relentless quest to conquer the Western part of the Old Continent, a fact that is pretty easy to prove with the jaw-dropping 87% rise in their regional sales as compared to the third quarter of 2008. Samsung is breathing in Nokia´s neck, managing to expand its market share to 30.5% and seems firmly intent to take over Nokia and its 35.3% slice of the pie. The other Korean manufacturer, LG, has ousted Sony Ericsson registering total sales of 5.1mln. handsets - about 200,000 more than the former bronze medal holder.

Windows Mobile keeps losing ground across Western Europe and its market share is shrinking. According to IDC, the major reason behind the continuous retreat is none other but Microsoft´s decision to delay the release of WM 6.5 until October, instead of rolling out the new OS in the summer when sales are usually stronger. The analysts, however, forecast that WM will get on the offensive and register positive growth next quarter. Sales of Android handsets across the region are on the rise and their demand has grown 4.2% in Q2 and 5.4% in Q3 2009 on a continuous basis. The guys at IDC admit they expected Android much stronger sales, but Europeans appear to be less worked up about Android than North American customers. Still, it´s good to see the market is stirring back to life, even if the economic recovery throughout the region is still fragile.