MOBILE phone manufacturer Nokia saw its market share fall sharply this year, figures showed last night.

Although Nokia was still the market leader, its share had fallen to 28.9 per cent in the first quarter of the year, from 34.6 per cent in the same period last year, market research group Gartner said.

The Finnish company saw its turnover weaken in recent months and has braced investors for a further slump.

The strength of the euro against the dollar added to pressure.

Gartner analyst Ben Wood said Nokia had suffered because worldwide mobile phone sales rose 34 per cent to 153 million units in the first quarter of the year.

The second most popular handset maker after Nokia was Motorola, which increased its share to 16.4 per cent from 14.7 per cent.

Then followed Samsung, whose share rose to 12.5 per cent from 10.8 per cent, followed by Siemens, which rose eight per cent from 7.6 per cent, and Sony Ericsson, which was up to 5.6 per cent from 4.7 per cent.

Mr Wood said Motorola would now have to maintain its strong performance after regaining the trust of key operators. The study showed that Nokia sold nearly five million more handsets in the first quarter compared with last year. Despite this, an update from the company in April showed that actual turnover fell two per cent during the period.

Nokia also said at the time that turnover for the second quarter was expected to be flat or slightly below the £4.68bn posted last year.