Mobile phone sales worldwide have taken the nose dive in the fourth quarter, as weakening economy hurt demand for new devices. But sales of smartphones continues to grow.

   According to IDC, the overall sales of mobile phones in the fourth quarter decreased by approximately 12.6 per cent compared to the fourth quarter of 2007. In the fourth quarter of 2008, manufacturers shipped a total of 289.0 million units, compared with 330.8 million units shipped during the fourth quarter a year ago.

”In the fourth quarter, it was perfect storm of factors for this outcome,”Ramon Llamas, IDC senior analyst for mobile devices technology and trends team, said in a statement. ”The combination of weak end-consumer demand, currency fluctuations, as well as the limited availability of credit market prevented the observed increase in the supply of normal seasonality. ”

Llamas said he expects the first half of 2009 will be difficult for mobile phone bodies, as they attempt to clear their inventory. And he said that the market may not recover until the end of 2009, and possibly not until 2010.

One bright spot for the entire market for smartphones. These devices, which use modern operating systems and provide access to the Internet and other information services as electronic mail, were the hottest-selling devices in the fourth quarter. The device of increased sales of these advanced phones to 22.5 per cent compared to the fourth quarter of 2007, said IDC.

In North America, smartphone sales grew by about 70.1 per cent, while in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, sales rose about 25 percent.

“As long as the operators will be able to continue to subsidize these devices, as well as developers continue to enhance applications, this segment will be a silver lining in the otherwise gloomy market,”Reith Ryan, senior analyst with IDC Mobile Phone Tracker, said in a statement.

In the world of smartphone growth was caused by the traditional telephone bodies, such as Nokia, which is still number 1 manufacturer in the world, but he has also received support from new players such as Apple and Research In Motion, Reith said.

Nevertheless, Reith also said that in the fourth quarter also stressed the need for producers to diversify their products inside the smartphone category. He used Apple as an example. In the third quarter, Apple blew the doors wide open, selling nearly 6.9 million new iPhones worldwide in the quarter. But the party has slowed in the fourth quarter, and the company has sold only about 4.3 million new iPhones.

Meanwhile, Research In Motion, which sells several different versions of your device BlackBerry, sales actually increased from approximately 6.1 million devices, at the end of its second fiscal quarter to 6.7 million devices in the third fiscal quarter, which ended 29 November. Company financial fourth quarter, ending February 28.

“I think everyone, including Apple, to know the original Bump iPhone in sales was not sustainable,” Reith said. “And RIM success highlights the importance of various products in which the different products with different price points are sold through multiple carriers.”

Moving forward, smartphone market is the place to be. And Reith expects traditional manufacturers to focus on it. He also believes that operators will attempt to further drive this market by increasing the subsidies on the devices to accelerate adoption.

The reason is simple: mobile operators are doing a lot of money on data services, which they sell these devices. This recurring revenue is an additional subsidy.

Verizon Wireless announced last week that a large part of the growth experienced in the fourth quarter from data services. The average revenue per subscriber for data services amounted to 27.9 percent for the quarter compared to the same quarter a year ago. The company also said 37 per cent of new retail devices sold in the quarter were smartphones.

AT & T, which is activated 1.9 million iPhones during the quarter, saw its wireless data revenues grow 51.2 percent in the quarter. AT & T noted that in the fourth quarter marked 12 consecutive quarters that wireless data revenue grew in excess of 50 percent. And he said his company’s iPhone users, in particular, to create about 1,6 times more income than the average AT & T customer.