By Prince Osuagwu

The worldwide mobile phone market grew approximately 20 percent closing at 19.8 percent year over year in the first quarter of 2011, according to report released by the International Data Corporate, IDC.

This development according to the corporation, was fueled by high smartphone growth, especially in emerging markets, and gains made by market challengers.

The IDC Worldwide Mobile Phone Tracker, said that vendors shipped 371.8 million units in first quarter of 2011 compared to 310.5 million units in the first quarter of 2010.

Smartphone growth worldwide, particularly in Asia/Pacific, excluding Japan, Middle East and Africa, MEA, and Latin America, helped lift the overall market to a new first_quarter high. Increasingly, mobile phone makers and carriers are making smartphones affordable to a wider variety of people, which has helped drive the market to new heights.

It also said that Smartphone_specific vendors, such as HTC, continue to grow sales at a steady clip as a result of this trend.

Senior research analyst, Kevin Restivo, noted that “several notable vendors, including feature phone makers, outpaced the overall market, which contributed to share losses of some top suppliers. The growth of companies outside the top 5 vendors such as Micromax, TCL-Alcatel, Huawei, and Research In Motion, shows that the overall market is still very much ripe for share gains”.

Corroborating his position, senior research analyst with IDC’s mobile phone technology and trends team, Ramon Llamas added that “at the same time, feature phones have represented the majority of mobile phone shipments, but still are under tremendous pressure from smartphones. This is even as popular quick_messaging devices, that is phones with QWERTY keyboard, once a bright spot within the feature phone market, appear to be losing steam as smartphones gain popularity.

However, the report said that it did not expect feature phones to disappear quickly as there was still strong demand for them across the globe.