Global sales of mobile phone fell in the first quarter of this year, but smartphones continued to grow, despite a deepening recession, according to a report published by Gartner on Wednesday.

The new shouldn le ‘t come as a great shock. Manufacturers of mobile phones such as Nokia, had reported earnings for the disastrous first quarter. But the growth of smartphone sales, which were up 12.7 percent compared to first quarter of 2008, provides some hope for the industry.

The touch screen devices seem to lead the pack in terms of growth of device with Apple le ’s iPhone 3G doubling its market share in the first quarter compared to first quarter last year. Apple shipped 3.9 million iPhones for a market share of 10.8 percent.

In terms of overall market mobile phone manufacturers have sold about 269 million mobile phones, which was about 14.5 percent less than had been sold during the fourth quarter of 2008 and about 9.4 percent lower compared to even Fourth l last year.

Nokia has continued last year in line with about 36 percent of the market, an immersion of 3 percent from the same quarter. Samsung in ’s sales took off and now is the second largest manufacturer of mobile phones with 19.1 percent of the market. That is up 14.4 percent during the first quarter last year. The LG, Motorola and Sony Ericsson make up the rest of the five major manufacturers of mobile phone.

While Apple saw the greatest amount of growth on the side of smartphone, Nokia has managed to hold on to its position as the world ’s manufacturer greatest smartphones. The company has 41.2 percent of the smartphone market. But its market share had slipped. At the end of 2008, the company had 45.1 percent of the market. Apart from Apple, Research in the movement also had a great quarter. His Blackberry devices have comprised almost 20 percent of all smartphone sales in the quarter.

The surge in sales of smartphone is particularly good news for companies like Palm, which cash on the success of the next palm pressure. The phone, which goes on sale June 6 at the beginning will be sold exclusively on Sprint’s network le ‘of s. The device was announced in January at Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and hyped since. President Dan Hesse of Sprint le ‘its stated this week that he expects the gaps when the device goes on sale in two or three weeks.

Although sales of smartphones continue to grow, they still comprise only about 13.5 percent of total sales of mobile devices. This figure is up 11 percent a year ago, but it still represents a small part of the global market for mobile phone.

The fact that the smartphone market is growing at all during the current recession, says a lot about the high demand enclosed devices operating higher. But the service could derail heavy growth if the economy doesn le ‘t resume or people lose their work.

However, there are signs that the market stabilizes. Mark McKechnie, an analyst with Broadpoint Amtech, have published a research note earlier this week stating that early indications suggest that Nokia in ’s sales could be up slightly up in terms of total units for second quarter. Still, though the market looks like it could stabilize, most analysts put ‘t see a recovery until well into 2010. Until then the companies will cross their fingers that consumers ‘love affair with smartphones continues.

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