The international mobile phone market is experiencing its largesr ever growth period, research shows.

The third quarter of 2005 saw 205.4 million mobiles sold around the world, a 22 per cent increase on the same period of last year, according to analyst Gartner.

Carolina Milanesi, Gartner principal analyst for mobile terminals research, says part of the reason for the massive growth figures is that mature markets are not seeing a slow-down in purchase of new mobiles.

'As well as people replacing old phones, we are still seeing new people coming on to networks even in developed marketplaces. For instance, in Europe we still see really big additions in Italy, Germany and Spain, which are complementing massive growth in emerging markets like India and China,' Milanesi said.

As a result of the higher than expected growth, Gartner has now increased its worldwide mobile sales figure for the year to 810 million units.

Among the mobile phone makers Motorola and Nokia have been the biggest beneficiaries of the market growth, widening the gap between themselves and Samsung.

'Nokia and Motorola have both been aggressively targeting the emerging market areas, as well as continuing to invest hard in the developed market areas, something which is key to succeeding in this area at the moment,' Milanesi said.