Even more 'phones

The latest IDC report covers the period April - June 2011 and states that vendors shipped 365.4 million mobile phone units worldwide compared to 328.4 million in the same period last year. The growth is due to the increasing number of smartphones being purchased whilst the simpler and more basic "feature phone" market actually shrank 4% in the last twelve months. This decline being most prominent in the United States, Japan, and Western Europe, as users rapidly transition to smartphones. The shrinking feature phone market is having a significant impact on some of the world’s largest suppliers as they increasingly lose share in this market to low-cost suppliers such as Micromax, TCL-Alcatel, and Huawei. Nokia being particularly badly hit.