Smartphones continue to grab center stage in the mobile market as worldwide sales keep climbing, while basic cell phones lag behind with recording-breaking drops in purchase volume, according to a Gartner report released on Wednesday.

Sales of smartphones shined in the first quarter, up 12.7 percent to 36 million units worldwide from the same period last year, while mobile phones overall hit an historic low of 269 million sold, a drop of 9.4 percent, according to the report.

Smartphone sales represented 13.5 percent of all mobile device sales in the first quarter of 2009, compared with 11 percent in the first quarter of 2008. Gartner analysts said positive performance by Research in Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM) and Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) showed that services and applications are now instrumental to smartphone sales success.

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