Phones: Nokia soars, Moto moby sick

LATEST NUMBERS from analyst IDC say that Nokia is continuing to gain share and add to its big lead in handset sales.

Have a guess at how much product pumped out every day of the fourth quarter on average. OK, now double it and add half a million and you’ll discover that, yup, almost 1.5 million units left Nokia plants. And that was for a fourth quarter beset by component shortages. Nokia now has a cool 40 per cent of the market to itself.

Motorola is still heading south on the other hand, ceding its number-two position to Samsung, and losing almost half its share compared to the previous Q4.

Sony Ericsson and LG were both up sharply in market share to make up the top five places. µ