Mobile phone shipments continue to steadily increase, according to the latest official industry figures for June 2009.

The figures, compiled by Informark for AMTA, show there were 848,727 mobile handset shipments to Australia in June, which was 27.3 percent higher than the same month in 2008.

The shipments for the three-month period to June 2009 compared to the corresponding period in 2008 were up by 6.6 per cent. This was a continued improvement in trend terms over the past year.

In the first half of calendar 2009, there were a total of 4,393,515 mobile handset shipments to Australia compared to 4,224,651 for the first half of 2008.

This represents a 4 per cent rise in the first half of 2009 and suggests that if economic conditions continue to improve and consumer confidence remains buoyant with a lower-than-forecast unemployment peak, last year’s 8.8 million shipments – the second highest yearly total – could be surpassed in 2009.

The shipment figures are not sales figures because some imported handsets transported to Australia and on-shipped to other countries in the region.

The figures can be viewed at: www.amta.org.au under Industry Statistics