Smart Phone Sales Grow 27 Percent Worldwide

We may be in a worldwide recession, but that’s not stopping anyone from buying smart phones and signing on to more expensive monthly data plans. Gartner today said that smart phone sales worldwide grew 27 percent year over year, which it says is the fastest growing piece of the mobile phone pie.

Nokia lost 2.7% of the mobile phone market, between Q208 and Q209,to both LG and Samsung who gained 1.9 percent and 4.1 percent of the market, respectively.

Sony Ericsson, perhaps due to a slim portfolio of smart phones (the XPERIA X1 is the only one we can think of) and a lack of messaging phones, lost 2.8 percent of its share year over year.

And despite its lackluster N97 flagship phone, Nokia remains at the top of the smart phone market, dominating with a 45% share. Nokia is followed by Research in Motion (18.7%), Apple (which saw a 10.5 percent increase in market share year over year), HTC, and Fujitsu.