Sales of mobile phones reached 1.15 billion in 2007, the market research company Gartner reports.

This means a 16 percent increase from 2006, when 990.9 million phones were sold, the firm said.

The increase is probably due to the fact that technology kept evolving and consumers changed their old mobiles with new ones, looking for new features.

"Emerging markets, especially China and India, provided much of the growth as many people bought their first phone," Carolina Milanesi, research director for mobile devices at Gartner, said in a statement, according to CNET News. "In mature markets, such as Japan and Western Europe, consumers' appetite for feature-laden phones was met with new models packed with TV tuners, global positioning satellite (GPS) functions, touch screens and high-resolution cameras."

The leader on the market is Nokia, gaining 40 percent market share, with around 435 million phones sold in 2007.

Motorola lost market share during the last year, occupying the third position in terms of market share (14.3 percent), while LG (6.8 percent), Samsung (13.4 percent) and Sony Ericsson (8.8 percent) all gained market share in 2007.

There were three new entrances in the top 10 in the last quarter of 2007: Research in Motion (RIM), ZTE and Apple. Apple launched the iPhone last June and has sold over 4 million units since then.

“On one hand, we have aggressive pricing and a focus on emerging markets (ZTE), and on the other, RIM with targeted functions and Apple with brand and design,” said Milanesi, according to TMCnet.

Gartner’s analysts expect mobile phone sales to decrease slightly in 2008, due to the saturation of the market in North America and Western Europe.

“Phone manufacturers need to continuously adapt their portfolios to respond to operators' demands for open platforms, lower pricing and more personalization,” recommended Milanesi. “They should also try to meet consumers' desires for fashionable, easy-to-use phones.”