Japan mobile handset sales up 33.7%

Sales of mobile phone handsets in Japan totaled 11.9 million units from January to March, up 33.7% from a year earlier for the second consecutive quarterly rise, Gartner Japan Ltd. said Wednesday. Handset sales rose due to a slight increase in new mobile phone subscriptions and brisk demand to replace existing handsets with high-end, camera-equipped models.

NEC Corp. remained the top mobile-phone vendor for the ninth consecutive quarter, with sales up 34.3% to 2.66 million units in the first quarter. Its market share rose to 22.3% from 22.2% a year earlier. Gartner said sales of camera-equipped handsets continued to grow and reached 74.5% of the total cell-phone handset sales in the first three months of this year. Continue >>