HELSINKI (Reuters) - The global cellphone market is set to grow in the holiday sales-fueled October-to-December quarter, after four quarters of falls, research firm Strategy Analytics said on Friday.
"We forecast handset shipments to grow 3 percent annually in Q4 2009, signaling an end to the recession," analyst Neil Mawston said in a statement.
The mobile phone industry is ending its worst year ever, with top handset vendor NokiaStrategy Analytics estimated 291 million phones were sold in the third quarter, down 4 percent from a year ago.
Separately, research firm IDC estimated the market dropped 6 percent year-on-year to 287 million phones in the third quarter.(Reporting by Tarmo Virki; Editing by Valerie Lee)
