Two market research firms said worldwide mobile-phone unit sales will rise as much as 21 percent this year, countering some recent forecasts from handset makers predicting a smaller increase or a decline.
Gartner Inc's Dataquest Inc unit, based in San Jose, California, said phone makers are on pace to sell as many as 500 million handsets. ARC Group of Shalford, England, forecast sales of 491 million units.
That's generally higher than predictions last month from the top three mobile-phone makers. Nokia Oyj, the largest, forecast sales of 450 million to 500 million units; No. 2 Motorola Inc put it at 425 million to 475 million; and No. 3 Siemens AG said sales will be "closer to 400 million" than 450 million.
"They basically don't want to get hung out to dry again," Gartner Dataquest analyst Bryan Prohm said of the lower forecasts from the phone producers.
Nokia shares have dropped 34 percent this year and Motorola's have fallen 30 percent as the companies reduced sales targets.
Prohm said the likelihood of unit sales reaching his 500 million target depend on whether Nokia, with 35 percent of the market, is able to make enough phones to meet demand.
Other possibly limiting factors include the health of economies and the ability of wireless operators to add new subscribers, he said.
ARC Group, in a statement yesterday, cited unspecified recent information on new phone users, subscribers who switch services, and new handsets for Internet access as reasons for the researcher's relatively optimistic forecast.
Gartner also said Nokia increased its market share to 35.3 percent in the first quarter from 33.9 percent in the previous period, while Siemens, with an unchanged share of 6.9 percent, vaulted into the No. 3 slot past the sliding Ericsson AB, confirming figures the handset makers released last month.
Motorola remained in the No. 2 spot with 13.2 percent of units sold, up from 12.7 percent in the fourth quarter. Samsung Electronics Co, with 6.3 percent, reclaimed the No. 5 position from Matsushita Electric Industrial Co's Panasonic brand.
Gartner said 96.7 million hand-sets were sold in the first quarter and 412.7 million last year. ARC Group said last year's number was about 405 million.
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