A Gartner report has revealed a slow down in the growth of smartphone sales in the second quarter compared to a year ago. Current economic conditions were cited as the reason.

The report found that while the growth of smartphone sales was 16 percent in the quarter, that was sharply below 55 percent for the same period last year.

"The current economic environment continues to negatively impact the market, limiting consumer spending and replacement purchases in general," Roberta Cozza, principal analyst at Gartner, wrote.

According to Gartner, world wide sales of smartphone reached 32.2 million units in Q2. About 25 percent of those sales were in North America. The total for the year, about 125 million smartphones, represents about 10 percent of all mobile phones sold annually, worldwide, about 1.2 billion.

Smartphones have been one of the fastest-growing tech products as users are more using their smart mobile phone for music, surfing, and e-mail.

Source: Gartner

One reason for the slow growth for Apple in Q2 was that Apple was clearing out inventory in preparation for the launch of the iPhone 3G. In addition, post holiday demand for the (unlockable) iPhone 2G caught Apple by surprise early in the year, and that led to depleted inventories.

AAPL was trading at US$155.83 in afternoon trading, down $4.35 for the day. While MarketWatch drew the conclusion that AAPL was down on Monday due to the Gartner report, there isn’t universal agreement. Shaw Wu with American Technology Research told TMO that he doesn’t believe the Gartner report was the key factor in Monday’s decline in AAPL. Instead, he pointed to the fact that tech stocks were down on general on Monday, there are continuing worries about the macroeconomic situation, uncertainty over Apple’s event scheduled for September 9 and continued concerns over Mr. Jobs’ health.