The Big Six handset suppliers increased their rottweiler-like grip on the global mobile phone market, accounting for 84 per cent of all sales in Q4 2005.
The figures were revealed in a report by market research company Gartner who estimated that worldwide mobile phone sales totalled 816.6 million units in 2005 – up 21 percent from 2004 (and slightly up from Gartner’s Nov 2005 prediction)
Finnish fiends Nokia now hog a hefty 32.5 per cent of the world market in Q4, twice that of its nearest rival, Motorola (17.7%).
Samsung sit in third place with 12.7 percent of the global market, followed by LG on 6.7 percent, Sony Ericsson on 6.3 percent and Siemens on 3.5 percent.
Breaking the figures down, Western Europe saw 49.1 million units sold in the fourth quarter of 2005, compared to 164 million units in 2005.
In Central Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa (CEMEA), annual mobile phone sales reached 153.5 million units, while in North America, fourth quarter mobile phone sales reached 41.3 million units with a 2005 total of 148.4 million units.
There was a veritable tango of phone flogging going down Latin America way, with sales reaching nearly 102 million units in 2005, a maraca-shaking 40 percent increase from 2004.
In Asia/Pacific 56.4 million mobiles were shifted in the fourth quarter of 2005 and 204 million units in 2005, with sales fuelled by lucrative markets like China and India.
Carolina Milanesi, principal analyst for mobile terminals research at Gartner, commented: “As competition continues to drive price pressure in the low-end, and a design and technology ‘arms race’ in the high-end, the survival of the fittest depends more and more on economies of scale, or very carefully cut out niche markets.”
“The industry experienced record sales due to continued strong growth in emerging markets, where falling prices for cellular connectivity – phones and subscriptions – resulted in higher-than-expected sales. In more mature markets, such as Western Europe and North America, replacement sales were driven by users that gave into the charm of highly fashionable devices,” she added.
Such was the rabid enthusiasm for trendy feckers to get their grubby mitts on the latest ‘must have’ phone, some were happy to shell out for new contracts before their previous one had expired, with the Motorola pink Razr and Siemens CL75 Poppy being particularly sought after.
In a reflection of the growing convergence between phones and digital cameras, Sony Ericsson have declared their new K800 and K790 phones to be worthy of the Cybershot brand.
To help share your photographic masterpieces, Sony Ericsson have struck a deal with Google to enable easy photo blogging with the search engine’s Blogger service.
Sony Ericsson have also announced two additions to the K series along with a new phone in the Z range.
EntertainmentMusic Player (MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+ support)
More flexible than a Russian athlete in a vat of oil, Samsung’s double-flipping DMB phone offers a novel twist on the clamshell format.
As well as the DMB functionality, the Samsung SPH-B1300 serves up the usual advanced mobile feature set, complete with a two megapixel digital camera and built-in MP3 player.
We can expect more details about the Samsung SPH-B1300 to be revealed at the CeBit 2006 show in Hannover next month.
Islington’s free WiFi cloud to extended well beyond the initial Technology Mile.
Jogging geeksters! Set your wallets to ‘buy’ as GlobalSat are set to release a wrist-type GPS Receiver aimed at sporty types who get their kicks from running around all over the place on foot, bike, board or ski.
Training projects and analysis come with the bundled Windows-compatible “professional self-training” package, but Apple users can stay at home because we couldn’t find any mention of Mac support.
GPS Parameters 
We understand from good sources that BT is set to announce the name of the buyer for a major slice of its Media and Broadcast operations.
In the frame for the buyout, which is likely to involve the transfer of over 100 employees, is the Australian-backed Arqiva and a major UK bank.
Announced at the CES 2006 show earlier this month, the Samsung Helix XM2Go has now appeared for pre-orders on Amazon.com (US).
The good news is that the service is commercial free – the bad news is that it’s a subscription service, with plans starting at $12.95 a week.
This lets users ‘tag’ a song they hear on the XM radio, and then buy and download the tune song via Napster.
According to a new survey from Virgin Mobile, mobile telephone text messaging has become so popular in the UK that millions are complaining of injuries to their thumbs and fingers.
Despite the agony, it seems that Brits are prepared to go through the pain barrier to keep bashing out their texts, with more than twelve per cent admitting to sending 20 text messages a day – with a seriously obsessed ten per cent blasting out as many as 100 texts a day!
Designed to highlight the very real problems of RSI, Virgin have sponsored a very useful site, 
As a recent sufferer of RSI (brought on by long hours sweating over a hot Logitech as I try to bring you, dear reader, the latest stories), I strongly recommend you try out some of the exercises.
The City of London is to get blanket Wi-Fi, with city slickers able to access the Web anywhere within London’s famous financial district, the Square Mile.
Unfortunately, unlike the free Wi-Fi service 
The move follows an announcement that The Cloud would be installing network hubs and rolling out WiFi in nine cities across Britain, including Edinburgh, Leeds, Manchester, Oxford and Liverpool.