Informa Telecoms & Media says the ongoing financial crisis started to make an impact on the global mobile telecommunications sector during the second half of 2008.

Furthermore, the research company says the slowdown in the growth of global mobile subscription numbers and the device market is likely to accelerate in 2009.

A fortnight ago the same company said "there are opportunities available for investors, operators and vendors in the dynamic global mobile industry" as it sought allay fears of a slowdown.

Two weeks is a long time in a credit crunch, it seems. Now Informa is forecasting 12.7 per cent growth in mobile subscribers this year, compared to 18.5 per cent in 2008 and 22.5 per cent in 2007.

It says some of this slowdown can be attributed to saturation of Western countries, but warns of a seven per cent fall in the handset replacement market last year, with the total device market in Western Europe forecast to contract by 13 per cent in 2009.

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Informa maintains new subscriptions in the emerging markets of Africa and south Asia continue to drive growth, but points out that deamnd there is mostly for basic and low feature handsets.

Informa's senior forecasting analyst Nidhir Maudgalya said: "The handset market is facing a difficult period with the average replacement cycle likely to increase by 6-8 months in 2009, which would result in a five per cent y-o-y decline in the number of total devices sold globally to 1.16 billion.

“And things could get even worse than this, as depending on the extent of the deterioration of global macroeconomic conditions, the y-o-y fall in the number of total devices sold could double to 10 per cent with replacement cycles increasing to up to 12 months.”