4.2 Wireless Communication Technologies over Q1 2008 (and a 20% decline from Q4 2008), with this trend likely to continue throughout 2009.66 Some niche markets have been relatively unaffected – Gartner Research estimates that in Q1 2009, while worldwide mobile phone sales reported an 8.6% de-cline Overall, mobile telephony remains a high-growth ICT sector, with healthy returns on investment, steady growth metrics and short planning hori-zons year-on-year from Q1 2008, smartphone sales to recoup investments. Worldwide, the total surpassed 36.4 million units, a 12.7% increase on the same period last year.67 number of mobile subscribers continues to grow despite the fi nancial crisis. The research consultancy the Mobile World estimates that some 140 million new subscribers were added globally in Q1 2009, bringing the global total to some 4.15 billion mobile subscriptions in March 2009 (Insight 11). Of these 140 million new subscribers, some 98 million came from Asia (with 45 million new subscribers in India alone). By comparison, growth in Europe was negli-gible, Growth in developing markets is expected to slow, but not decline. ABI Research estimates that Asia- Pacifi c posted only an 8% year-on-year decline in handset shipments, while the Latin American market experienced a 28% decline, the largest decline of any region largely due to currency devaluations driving up the prices of imported mobile phones. Growth in the largest developing markets is expected to contin-ue at not much over 1 million in the fi rst quarter, while Eastern Europe showed some severe reductions in subscriber base in Q1 2009. with hardly any observable effect from the crisis. Pyramid Research forecasts an ongoing Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 7.4% for China’s mobile subscribers that will drive the Chinese mobile market past the 1 billion mobile subscriber milestone in 2012 to reach 1.1 billion in 2014, when mobile penetration will be equivalent to 80%, compared with 52% at the end of 2008.68 Merrill Lynch recently predicted that mobile subscription growth In terms of handset shipments, ABI Research notes that the fi rst quarter always delivers a sequential drop in handset shipments after the holiday season, but its analysis suggests that the drop in mobile handsets in Q1 2009 was especially sharp, with the global mobile market shipping 255.6 million handsets in Q1 2009, 35 million fewer units or a 12% decline 62 Confronting the Crisis: ICT Stimulus Plans for Economic Growth