Worldwide cellular shipments down

Global mobile phone shipments fell 10% year-over-year, to reach 295 million units in Q4 2008, according to the latest research from Strategy Analytics, writes Cellular News.

An economic downturn in developed and emerging markets caused the industry's slowest growth rate since 2001.

Bonny Joy, senior analyst at Strategy Analytics, said: “Global mobile phone shipments fell to 295 million units during Q4 2008, down a significant 10% from 329 million units in Q4 2007.”

Huawei Technologies, China's largest telecoms equipment maker, and Swedish giant Ericsson, were the biggest winners in the tender for China Unicom's third-generation network construction, according to a newspaper report, states Reuters.

China Unicom holds a licence to develop a 3G mobile network under WCDMA standards, while rival China Telecom recently received a CDMA2000 licence.

Industry leader China Mobile obtained approval to operate the nation's home-grown TD-SCDMA technology.

Verizon Wireless and Research in Motion have high hopes for the BlackBerry Storm, which they spent nearly two years developing as their big response to Apple's iPhone, says The Wall Street Journal's online portal.

But despite a marketing campaign that cost more than $100 million, the smartphone has gotten off to a bumpy start.

Some early buyers have complained about technical bugs with RIM's first touch-screen BlackBerry, although others say most new gadgets have problems that need to be ironed out.