The economic meltdown is cooling even the white-hot cell phone market. Last week, two major research firms released sales forecasts for 2009 that calls for pain.

IDC just lowered its numbers for cell phone sales this year, and expects total mobile phone revenues to drop 8.3 percent in 2009, the first yearly dip since 2001. Additionally, smartphone sales will only grow by 3.4 percent, according to IDC, which had formerly slated the category for an 8.7 percent increase.

"Expectations for 2009 were negative going into the fourth quarter of 2008. However, worse-than-expected results and a steady flow of negative economic news are indicating that 2009 will be gloomier than predicted," said Ryan Reith, senior research analyst with IDC's Worldwide Mobile Phone Tracker. "Concern is understandable during this time, but note that the mobile phone market still has plenty of room to grow on a global scale and we expect recovery will begin in the first half of 2010."

As consumer spending has dropped, handset manufacturers and telecommunications companies have reduced their inventories, and left chip vendors with increased overstock, which had a dramatic impact on shipments, according to IDC.

Meanwhile, the U.S., Japanese and Western European markets are also not faring well, as shipments are expected to decline in these countries by 24.6 percent to 12.4 percent throughout the year, according to the research firm.

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