The International Data Corporation (IDC) has conducted a research and discovered that a 19.8 percent growth was registered in the worldwide mobile phone market in the first quarter of 2011.

According to IDC’s data, 371.8 million units were shipped by mobile phone vendors in Q1 2011, while only 310.5 million of them were sold in the same first quarter of 2010. There was a significant smartphone growth in Asia, Middle East, Africa and Latin America, and both smartphone and feature phone manufacturers had their role in the market growth.

“Several notable vendors, including feature phone makers, outpaced the overall market, which contributed to share losses of some top suppliers,” said Kevin Restivo, senior research analyst with IDC’s Worldwide Mobile Phone Tracker.

“The growth of companies outside the top 5 vendors – vendors in the ‘Others’ category, such as Micromax, TCL-Alcatel, Huawei, and Research In Motion – shows that the overall market is still very much ripe for share gains,” he added.

Here is the list of Top Five Mobile Vendors Q1 2011, according to IDC:

1. Nokia
2. Samsung
3. LG Electronics
4. Apple
5. ZTE

Nokia, which, according to IDC, is the leading mobile phone vendor, had 108.5 million shipments (0.6 percent more than in the last year’s first quarter) in Q1 2011 and gets 29.2 percent of the market. Samsung, which is the second in the list, had 70.0 million (8.9 percent more than last year) shipments and got the 18.8 percent of the market. LG Electronics had 24.5 million shipments (9.6 percent less than in 2010) and 6.6 percent of the market.

Apple registered a great progress and shipped 18.7 million devices (114.9 percent more than in 2010), gaining 5 percent of the market. And ZTE had 15.1 shipments (45.2 percent more than in Q1 2010) and gained the 4.1 percent of the market. As for the other phone vendors that were not included in the list of top 5, 135 million phones were sold by them in the first quarter of 2011, which is 46.4 percent more than last year, so now the 36.3 percent of the mobile phone market belongs to them.

Nokia is going to make a massive announcement during next week’s Mobile World Congress. The Finnish company will completely change the name of its mobile devices. The first large-scale innovation will become Nokia N8 smartphone.
Instead of the traditional series like Classic, XpressMusic or Navigator will come five series identified by the letters of the alphabet. C-Series will bring together the simplest solutions for voice communications. X-series, with support for music and entertainment content, will be aimed at young audience. E-series will continue to integrate solutions for business. The common N-series will include premium-class solutions, S-series will include exclusive devices of limited edition.

Nokia has already developed a flagship phone for a number of categories. So, Nokia C5-00, equipped with GPS and basic functions of a business phone, will go on sale in France in June. This series will also include C3-00 and C5-01 mobile phones. The first will be an inexpensive device platform based on Symbian S40, equipped with a QWERTY-keyboard and support for e-mail. The Second will become a direct competitor of BlackBerry phones.
It is expected that this summer Nokia will release N8-00 smartphone, equipped with a 3.5-inch capacitive touch display and 12-megapixel camera. This phone was the first device running on OS Symbian ^ 3. It will also support HD-video recording of 720p format and will be equipped with HDMI port.

The largest global manufacturer of mobile phones, Nokia, intends to “vigorously” defend itself in court on charges of fraud. The scandal erupted last Friday when a group of investors from the United States has accused the Finnish manufacturer of concealing information and as a consequence of falling profits. The petition was filed in federal court in New York on February 5.

It noted, that Nokia had not informed investors about the production delays in the release of certain models of mobile phones in 2008. According to the plaintiffs, this violation of the decline in prices of Nokia products, led to a drop in the cost of mobile phones and reduction of operating profit. Nokia, in its turn, called all the allegations ungrounded.
We would like to mention that the company’s net profit in 2009 decreased 4,5 times and was only 891 million euros compared to the 3.99 billion euros of a year earlier.

In the next few years the payments, made via mobile phones, will become very popular. Nokia is well aware of this and has already started to cooperate with the Obopay company.

The U.S. company is developing Obopay mobile payments system, which will pay for goods and services, or simply transfer money from one account to another. Details of the financing agreement were not disclosed, but we know that Nokia has invested a considerable sum into the Obopay company. On this occasion, the Vice-President and the head of corporate business development of Nokia, Teppo Paavola was included to the Board of Directors of Obopay.

Intel and Nokia announced the conclusion of long-term strategic partnership agreement, which aims to co-creation of a new class of mobile devices based on Intel chipsets. Both giants promise that these devices will combine the power of computers with communicational capabilities of mobile phones.

The plans of producers include the creation of such a device, which will in many ways surpass modern netbooks and smartphones, and along with innovative hardware, it will include a number of innovative applications and Internet services. Intel will create the hardware, and Nokia will provide its policy of use.
In addition, both companies will cooperate in the field of software with open source and will take active role in the development of oFono, ConnMan, Mozilla, X. Org, BlueZ, D-BUS, Tracker, GStreamer, PulseAudio, Moblin and Maemo. The combination of these technologies can provide the user with a full mobile Internet with rich graphics and multimedia capabilities.
The manufacturers do not reveal the details about what exactly would constitute a self-developed device, as well as when to expect its announcement.

Nokia Company sells its most expensive mobile phones under the Vertu brand name. Regardless of this, the jeweler Stuart Hughes has increased the cost of Nokia phone to astronomical limits.
The basis of the framework of Stuart Hughes, which was named Nokia Supreme, became the production model Nokia 8800 Arte. Jeweler adorned its body with platinum and pink diamonds. Moreover, the total weight of used platinum is 83 g, and the number of diamonds placed on the case consists of 1,225 pieces. In the navigation button is inserted one large diamond, with a weight of three carats.
Nokia Supreme mobile phone comes in a box which is made of granite and leather. The cost of this unit is £ 99,995 or $ 160,000.