These results for third quarter were still thought to be down by 6 percent from same quarter of the year 2008, but this quarter-to-quarter growth was taken as first sign of the improvement since the onset of economic downturn as said by the analyst firm.

Overall, a number of 287.1 million cell phones and also smartphones were being shipped in third quarter, which is 6 percent down from the number of 305.4 million shipped during the third quarter of the year 2008. The shipments do not result in sales necessarily to the end user customers, but they indicate that the carriers and all other retailers expect to make the sales by ordering it from the manufacturers.

An IDC analyst has said that during the third quarter, many of the sale channels have promoted the older devices at lower prices, by creating a demand that has pushed up the shipment volumes. He also said that we have now moved in fourth quarter, and the vendors are setting up the stage for some further gains with the launch of their flagship devices in order to meet the pent-up demand.