Growth in global mobile phone shipments slowed in the first three months of 2007 after a poor performance from Motorola, an industry report has said.
Motorola had a poor first quarter, said the report
A total 252 million handsets were shipped in the first quarter of this year, a 12% rise from a year earlier.
This was the first quarter in almost two years in which the annual rate of growth has been below the 20% mark, said the study by Strategy Analytics.
It said Motorola's shipments fell 1.5% from January to March.
Motorola, the industry's second-biggest mobile phone company, shipped 45.4 million units during the quarter, down from 46.1 million a year earlier, the report said.
In contrast, Sony Ericsson, the industry number four, saw its shipments jump 63% to 21.8 million handsets.
On Friday, the Swedish-Japanese firm said that its profits had more than doubled to 254m euros ($346; £173m) during the first three months of the year.
Shipments at market leader Nokia rose 21% to 91.1 million phones, while those at the third-biggest firm, Samsung, added 20% to 34.8 million.
"Looking ahead, Motorola may take longer than one year to recover fully," said the report.
It added that the company's strategy of cutting costs by having fewer platforms, and raising prices and bringing out new phones, would take "at least four to eight quarters to execute".
Meanwhile, a separate report said on Friday said that China and India will lead growth in the mobile-phone sector.
The report by Global Insight said that the two countries will account for 60% of the predicted 1.2 billion new mobile phone subscribers over the next five years.