El Segundo (CA) - Cellphone manufacturers had a good start into the new year. All but one manufacturer posted solid gains over Q1 2006 and laid the foundation to beat total 2006 sales of more than 1 billion phones.

According to iSuppli, about 253 million phones were sold in Q1 of this year, which translates into 13.5% growth year-over-year and a sequential decline of 12.8% over the seasonally strong fourth quarter.

Nokia led the pack with an seemingly unchallenged market share of 36.0% and 91.1 million shipped in Q1. Annual growth of 21.3% increased the lead over Motorola, which was the only top 5 manufacturer to see its shipments decline year-over-year. Motorola lost 1.5% over Q1 2006 and shipped 45.5 million phones for a 17.9% market share. Third was Samsung, which gained 20.0% year-over-year and drove 34.8 million phones into the market (13.8% market share).

SonyEricsson (21.8 million units, 8.6%) and LG (15.8 million, 6.2%) round out the five largest cellphone manufacture ranking.