A Billion Handsets Per Year By 2009

It's fun sometimes watching analysts contradict each other in their predictions. Last week, one firm said mobile phone sales growth was slowing significantly this year, while another firm today raised its 2005 sales estimates for the second time to 779 million units and also adding the prediction that more than a billion handsets will be sold for the the first time in 2009. Today's report say growth remains strong around the world and in both mature and emerging markets, something second-quarter earnings results from handset vendors seem to bear out so far.