Global mobile phone sales have declined for the first time since 2009, new figures show.

Research firm Gartner have revealed that 419.1million units were sold in the first quarter of this year. This marks a 2% drop when compared to sales made during last year’s first quarter.

Anshul Gupta, principal research analyst at Gartner, observed: “Global sales of mobile devices declined more than expected due to a slowdown in demand from the Asia/Pacific region.

“The first quarter, traditionally the strongest quarter for Asia – which is driven by Chinese New Year, saw a lack of new product launches from leading manufacturers, and users delayed upgrades in the hope of better smartphone deals arriving later in the year.”

Speculation is rife this week that Apple will soon announce more details about the release of the iPhone 5 after news stories reported they have registered the website domain iPhone5.com. And Gartner officials expect the arrival of the iPhone 5 to boost mobile sales later in the year.

Annette Zimmermann, principal research analyst at Gartner, said: “The lower results in the first quarter of 2012 have led us to be cautious about sales for the remainder of the year.

“The continued roll-out of third generation (3G)-based smartphones by local and regional manufacturers such as Huawei, ZTE, Lenovo, Yulong and TCL Communication should help spur demand in China.

“In addition, the arrival of new products in mature markets based on new versions of the Android and Windows Phone operating systems (OSs), and the launch of the Apple iPhone 5 will help drive a stronger second half in Western Europe and North America.

“However, as we are starting to update our market forecast we feel a downward adjustment to our 2012 figures, in the range of 20 million units, is unavoidable.”

(Photo courtesy of digitpedia on Flickr)