The economic slowdown won't stop roughly 500 million consumers signing-up to mobile services for the first time in 2009 but much of that growth is expected to come from emerging markets where wages are lower and low-cost, entry-level handsets are likely to sell better than the latest feature-rich smartphone.

"The pricier feature-phone and smart-phone market segments are driven by existing subscribers who are upgrading their mobile devices to take advantage of new features and advanced data services. As the economic climate deteriorates, these customers are delaying their purchases," iSuppli said in a statement.

Gartner has noted that current users in the Asia Pacific region waited an average of eight months to buy a new handset in the third quarter, compared to four months previously.

Nokia, the world's largest cell-phone maker, last month revised down its projection for the global handset market in 2009 to 1.22 billion but said it sees smartphone sales holding up.

"The volume impact is primarily in the mass market but people still desire smartphones and they will continue to," said Rick Simonson, Nokia's chief financial officer in a conference call on Nov. 14. "It is a growing part of the market so where we see devices that really do add something different and add value, people still have a lot of demand for that."