The smartphone market is growing at a healthy rate, as most of the players. This is leading to some interesting changes in the marketplace, such as the types of phones used, the most popular designs and dominant networks.
It's easy to fall into U.S.-centric thinking, but when you look at a global level, there is plenty of room for growth in smartphones, data plans, and 3G technologies. Enterprise Mobile Today takes a look at where smartphones are headed.
The total number of mobile handset shipments in 2009 topped 1.15 billion, according to a recent report by ABI Research, with smartphones having a greater impact on the mobile market in several ways. All told, enhanced "regular" phones, called feature phones, and smartphones accounted for 81 percent of total sales.
Smartphones as a category were only 15 percent to 20 percent of the handset market, according to Michael Morgan, industry analyst for mobile devices at ABI, but that number is growing quickly. Much of that growth is in the U.S., thanks to subsidies that make pricier smartphones affordable.
