There’s no doubt about it: mobile phone shipments in Q1 were down. Research firm Gartner has released figures showing a 9.4 per cent decrease in cellphone shipments in the first quarter compared to last year. In an report released in late April, research firm Strategy Analytics said Q1 sales dropped 13 percent, the biggest decline it said since the mobile cellphone industry began in 1983. Gartner’s top five manufacturers are the same at Strategy Analytics, with Nokia (NYSE: NOK) still the number one handset maker with a 36.2 percent market share, followed by Samsung (19.1 percent), LG (SEO: 066570) (9.9 percent), Motorola (NYSE: MOT) (6.2 percent) and Sony (NYSE: SNE) Ericsson (NSDQ: ERIC) (5.4 percent).

But while overall cellphone sales were down in the first quarter, sales of integrated devices jumped 12.7 percent compared to last year, meaning that more than 36.4 million smartphones were shipped in Q1 (See Gartner’s chart below). Nokia continues to retain the lion’s share of the smarpthone market at 41.2 percent, but its lead is slipping. Last year, it had a 45.1 percent slice. Apple (NSDQ: AAPL), meanwhile, had the biggest growth in sales. The iPhone’s market share doubled in the first quarter compared to last year to 10.8 percent, with approximately 3.9 million iPhone’s shipped. The second largest smartphone maker in Q1 was Research In Motion, whose Blackberry devices gave it a 19.9 percent share. Smartphone sales in Q1 made up 13.5 per cent of all mobile device sales, compared with last year’s 11 per cent.

The touchscreen craze shows no signs of letting up, with touchscreens driving much of the smartphone growth in Q1, both in mid-tier and high-end devices. But according to Gartner principal analyst Roberta Cozza, as the trend moves toward the mainstream, better integration with applications start becoming more important amongst these devices. Said Cozza, “’Touch for the sake of touch’ was enough of a driver in the midtier space, but tighter integration with applications and services around music, mobile e-mail, and Internet browsing made the difference at the high end of the market.”

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