Photo courtesy of iStockphoto, Yunus Arakon

Research firm Gartner today reports that worldwide mobile phone sales reached almost 305 million units in Q2 2008, an 11.8 percent increase over the same period last year. Nokia continues to lead with 39.5 percent of the global mobile phone market.

"The economic environment continued to negatively impact mobile phones sales in both mature and Emerging Markets," says Carolina Milanesi, the firm's research director for mobile devices at Gartner. "Consumers in mature markets continued to favour mid-tier devices over high-end devices, while new subscribers continued to join mobile networks in emerging markets during the quarter. However, replacement sales remained weak, as consumers faced higher prices for fuel and food in addition to higher levels of inflation. Despite this, we remain positive that mobile phone sales in 2008 will reach 1.28 billion units."

More here from MarketWatch ... more here from Reuters ... more here from Wi-Fi Planet ... more here from InformationWeek ... more here from PC World ... more here from the AFP ... and the press release is here.