New devices helping consumers jump onto the smartphone trend: report

Smartphone sales around the world have grown by more than 89 percent over the past year thanks to an increased choice in handsets and enhanced device promotion and availability in stores.

"The market transition to smartphones is proceeding at a brisk and unabated pace," said Kevin Restivo, senior analyst, Mobility, at IDC in a quarterly report on the worldwide smartphone market published on November 4.

The trend is fueled by the high numbers of new handsets arriving in stores, many of which are being offered at very competitive prices.

The general buzz surrounding handsets such as Nokia's flagship N8, the HTC Evo 4G, the Motorola Droid X, the Samsung Epic 4G, the iPhone 4 and has also driven consumer awareness and resulted in increased demand for smartphones.

Around the world a total of 81.1 million smartphones were sold in the third quarter of 2010, up from 42.8 million units during the same time last year said IDC.

"Increasingly, users look to smartphones as their next devices while carriers have broadened selection and offered generous subsidies. To keep up with demand, vendors' plans to emphasize smartphones in their portfolios have resulted in sharp growth as evidenced by Motorola, Samsung, and Sony Ericsson. We expect more vendors to do the same," remarked Ramon Llamas, senior research analyst with IDC's Mobile Devices Technology and Trends team.

The recent announcements and/or releases of refreshed and easier-to-use operating systems from major smartphone makers (such as RIM's BlackBerry OS 6.0, Apple's iOS 4.2, Nokia's Symbian^3 and Microsoft's Windows Phone 7) will but even more smartphones into the hands of consumers in the near future.

IDC believes converged device sales will make up more than 20% of all mobile phone sales by the end of 2010.

According to technology and strategy consulting company Chetan Sharma, 47 percent of the devices sold in the US in Q3 2010 were smartphones.

Top Five Mobile Phone Vendors and their market share for 3Q 2010:

Nokia - 32.7%
Apple - 17.4%
RIM - 12.4%
Samsung - 7.2%
HTC - 5.8%
Others - 15.1%