The global economic slowdown has seemingly impacted every company out there to some degree. The economy has been an ongoing factor in the performance of the world's handset makers, but that didn't stop more than 250 million people from buying new phones in the first quarter of 2009.

According to ABI Research the statistics have exceeded earlier expectations with sales of 253.5 million.
However, it shows an 11 percent decline when compared to the same quarter last year but given the economy the news is seen to be neither good nor disappointing. Apple sold 3.79 million iPhones across the world during the same quarter. Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, the CEO of Nokia, is estimating that sales of the 5800 XpressMusic will reach 3 million for the year as a whole.

Samsung and LG have increased their market shares to 17.8% and 8.8% respectively, while RIM (NSDQ: RIMM) increased its share to 3.0 percent. Its increase can be attributed to the success of its Blackberry Bold. Interestingly, the market share of Apple is just 1.5% amidst claims that it has sold around 21 million iPhones. However, the company has a lot of scope for improving its market share with its new iPhone OS 3.0 on the way.

ABI Research also estimates the second quarter will see a downfall compared to last year (2nd Qtr 2008), at which time mobile phone sales were particularly high.

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