Research and Markets has announced the addition of new IE Market Research Corp report: 2Q.08 Global Handset Vendor and Technology Forecast to their offering.

Global Handset Vendor and Technology Forecasts provides historical and forecasted (2003 - 2011) information on global handset shipments by unit shipments, air interface, generation, and form factor.

Vendors with complete coverage include: Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, LG, and Sony-Ericsson.

The reports says that unit shipments globally are expected to rise from 1.14 billion in 2007 to 1.59 billion in 2011. Of this total, the expectation is that shipments of converged mobile devices in the world will increase from 142 million in 2008 to 258 million in 2011, making up 16.2% of the global handset market.

About 67% of the 1.59 billion shipments that will take place in 2011 should be 2.5G handsets. The forecast is that shipments of 2.5G handsets will increase from 900 million in 2008 to 1.06 billion in 2011.

But 3G handset shipments are also increasing steadily. Over the forecast period of 2008 - 2011, the paper expects 3G handset shipment to increase by 75.6% from 200 million to 351 million.

NOKIA continues to perform well in the global 3G handset market with 25.2% of all 3G handsets sold in the world in December 2006. The Top 5 vendors - Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and LG - continue to gain market shares from other vendors in the global 3G handset market, primarily because Japanese vendors have not been able to make much inroads into the 3G space in international markets.