Smart phones, which can surf the Internet, e-mail photos and do other computer-like functions, are still only about one-quarter of the overall cell phone market worldwide. But they have been growing fast as consumers trade up from less-capable voice and text phones. IDC estimates that smart phone shipments will top 269 million this year, up from 173.5 million in 2009.
For the first six months of this year, smart phone makers shipped 119 million phones, up 55 percent from the first half of 2009, according to IDC.
But HTC and Motorola — both of which use Google’s Android operating system for their phones — made the most gains in the second quarter compared with the first quarter, said Llamas. HTC’s U.S. market share climbed from 8.9 percent to 14.2 percent. Motorola rose from 12.9 percent to 14.2 percent.
Android is the wild card, deserving close observation for the rest of this year and years to come. As HTC and Motorola have leapt out in front with their own respective (Android-based) devices, others such as Dell, Kyocera, LG Electronics and Samsung will soon help grow the number of Android phones on store shelves.”
The net for all businesses is to be connect and marketing to smartphone users as this will be device of choice going forward.