The worldwide market for smartphones is expected to grow 55.4 percent this year as compared to 2009.
The growth is 10 percent higher than the previous forecast from the International Data Corporation (IDC (News - Alert)) Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker.
IDC predicts that mobile phone vendors will ship 269.6 million converged mobile devices this year compared to the 173.5 million units shipped in 2009; this in-spite the launch of several new models, such as the BlackBerry Torch, EVO 4G, and the iPhone 4, in recent months.
Kevin Restivo, senior research analyst with IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone (News - Alert) Tracker pointed out that the smartphone caused the rebound in the worldwide mobile phone market this year. He added that other product introductions and an increase in smartphone buying activity in the second half of the year will further expand the market.
Ramon Llamas, senior research analyst with IDC's Mobile Devices Technology and Trends team, said that while the worldwide smartphone market expands at a strong rate, the market dynamics among mobile operating systems continues to shift. He added that long-time operating systems leaders BlackBerry, Symbian (News - Alert), and Windows Mobile have introduced refreshed operating systems to compete with recent newcomers Android and iOS which has further helped propel the market forward.
Llamas also said that users have accepted the Android as they find it similar to iOS as it affords ease of use and a growing mobile application storefront. He explained that in addition to HTC (News - Alert) and Motorola, other vendors such as Dell, Kyocera, LG Electronics, and Samsung will also soon help expand the Android market.
IDC has predicted overall mobile phone market to grow 14.1 percent in 2010 in comparison to last year when the market declined 2.8 percent.
2011 looks strong with an increase of 24.5 percent in the smartphone market. Although smartphone growth will decline progressively over the course of IDC's five-year forecast period.
Restivo said that they believe the market can support up to five OS players over the next five years, and that shorter replacement cycles with an ample feature phone to smartphone upgrade opportunity means the smartphone OS market will remain fragmented but healthy for the future.
Symbian will hold on to its number one standing throughout the forecast period with 32.9 percent share in 2014.
Vinti Vaid is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Vinti's articles, please visit her columnist page.Edited by
Ed Silverstein
