Mobile phone sales have started to fall according to Market research firm IDC.

IDC said manufacturers shipped 299 million handsets in Q3, which was up 3.2 percent from the same quarter in 2007 but down 0.4 percent from Q2 of this year.

Ryan Reith, a senior research analyst with IDC’s Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, in an October report said that handset vendors felt the pressures of the dismal economy in the third quarter of 2008, and as a result shipments and revenues were down almost across the board.

Reith added that there already were signs that average selling prices for mobile phones were dropping as holiday marketing campaigns opened, with competition for buyers remaining high.