"Operators in Germany and Italy recorded an excellent quarter, with the addition of more than one million new subscribers in a single quarter," Milanesi says.

In the Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa region sales of mobile devices almost matched Western Europe with 39.7 million units -- a 40 percent increase over the same period last year. Russia, Ukraine, Poland, SA, Nigeria and Turkey were the driving markets behind the regional growth.

The North American market grew slightly to 36.3 million units, which is the strongest third quarter for this region and the second strongest quarter on record.

"Despite a slow down in new subscribers' growth, the mobile device market grew sequentially by over 800 000 units thanks to sales coming from an increase in churn," says Hugues De La Vergne, principal analyst for mobile terminals research at Gartner, based in Dallas, Texas.

In Latin America, 26.1 million mobile phones were sold in the third quarter, 46 percent up from the same period last year.