A couple of months ago we reported the prediction from Informa Telecoms & Media that smartphone sales would grow 35.3% in 2009 while overall mobile phone sales would fall 10.1%. Today Gartner has released global mobile phone sales figures for Q1 2009 that confirm the trend. They say overall quarterly sales were down 9.4% year-on-year to 269.1 million, although smartphone sales were up 12.7% to 36.4 million. Incidentally, sales within the mobile channel were 244 million units, which means retailers sold 25 million more phones than they bought. [Press release]