Mobile phone makers will ship 625m handsets this year, 20 per cent more than they did in 2003, market watcher iSuppli has said after upping its quarterly shipments forecast.

The researcher calculates that some 155m handsets shipped in Q2, up just 1.6 per cent on Q1 2004, but a big 35.4 per cent on Q2 2003, which say phone shipments total 114.5m units.

The sequential growth may be been slim, but the "robust" level of shipments has led iSuppli to revise its figures for Q3 and Q4 upwards to 156m and 161.5m units, respectively. Those numbers represent sequential growth of 0.7 per cent and 3.5 per cent, respectively.

Around 73 per cent of the 625m handsets that will ship this year will be sold as upgrades to buyers' current phones. That proportion will rise to 90 per cent by 2008, the researcher said.

Cameras and colour displays are leading the demand - 20 per cent of handsets now shipping come feature a built-in camera - but 3G connections are helping too, with shipments rising in Q2 and Qualcomm's WCDMA royalty revenues up during Q2, too. iSuppli said it reckons WCDMA handset shipments will be up 300 per cent this year over 2003. Alas, it didn't say what proportion of those 625m handsets they will account for.

Nokia commanded 29.3 per cent of the mobile phone market in Q2, iSuppli said, after shipping 45.4m handsets. Motorola was second (15.3 per cent), closely followed by Samsung (14.6 per cent). ®

Related stories

PalmOne extends world PDA lead (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/07/28/q2_world_pda_shipments/)
Europe: we will buy your PDAs (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/07/23/euro_mobile_market_q2/)
HP extends PDA lead (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/07/21/euro_q2_pda_market/)
Global mobile phone sales soar (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/06/08/mobile_phone_sales/)
Chip biz IPO pushes Motorola into the red (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/07/21/motorola_q2_results/)
Nokia warning send shares falling (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/07/16/nokia_q3_warning/)
Sony Ericsson carries on making money (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/07/15/sonyericsson_q2_04/)
PDA, smartphone sales rocket in Europe (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/04/20/euro_q1_pda_sales/)