However it posted only an 8 percent YoY decline, which was a spot of encouragement. The Latin American market, however, tempered any encouraging news with a reminder of how deeply the recession can cut. The region had a nearly 28 percent decline in shipments, the largest decline of any region, due in large part to the devaluation of its currencies leading to higher prices of imported mobile phones.

Despite this gloomy news, the market has recently seen new much-hyped smartphone releases from Palm (), Apple () and Nokia ().

The latest global handset shipment data are provided in ABI Research's .

In , 40 percent of mobile phone users say they would rather lose their wallet than their mobile device. Nearly all said they would be "devastated" if they lost their phone.