A rough fourth quarter pulled down global cellphone shipments to 4.9% for the year, the slowest rate of growth since 2001. Year over year, Q4 saw a decline of 10.5% in handsets shipping. Nokia, Samsung, LG are the top 3 in market share, controlling over 65% of the market. The much-belabored Motorola checks in at #4 at 8.5% for the year; compared to 14.2% in 2007, ouch. The decline by Moto helped LG sneak on by.

In fact, three of the top five manufacturers posted negative growth numbers for Q4. Nokia, Moto, and Sony Ericsson. Again, Motorola was most affected, going from 40.9 million handset shipments in Q4 2007 to a dismal 19 million handset shipments in Q4 2008. Yes the economy is bad, but LG and Samsung found ways to post some growth. It seems that growth may have been at Moto’s expense.

Motorola’s new MotoSurf A3100 was the highlight of their booth. The new smartphone is powered by a skinned version of Windows Mobile 6.1, has a 2.8-inch touch screen display, and two cameras. Allthough the phone is currently headed for Asia and Latin America, we will likely be seeing it in the US very soon. Many of other things things in their booth were merely concepts, or products like WiMax that do not yet affect our lives — unless you live in Portland or Baltimore — however products like the Aura (the goofy-looking silver swivel phone) are fairly fresh.

Tonight I got some one on one time with the just announced MotoSurf from Motorola. Lately, I’ve berated Moto for being slow in developing new, relevant devices. For example, Moto was proudly showing off the Aura $2k+ phone they announced just a couple of weeks ago, plueeez! Earlier this week, I noted interest in this phone destined only for Asia and Latin America and after playing with it, it still holds my interest.

Thoughts on my fondling

See why I think this phone holds some promise.

Motorola let three phones creep out this morning, one of which is a snazzy looking touchscreen phone. I’ve been chastising Moto for their slow phone development, especially when it comes to replacing the RAZR with something worthy. The three phones released today, while interesting, lead me to believe the companies troubles won’t be solved any time soon.

The MotoSurf A3100 looks like an interesting phone. Featuring support for a 32GB SD card, two cameras, a skin GUI over Windows 6.1 (suggesting Windows Mobile 7 is a ways off still), a 2.8″ display, a-GPS and good looks. So what leads me to believe this won’t be the company’s standard bearer?