Smartphones driving strong mobile sales

The market for smartphone devices has risen by 55.4 per cent this year, exceeding expectations and pushing overall mobile sales forecasts up by 10 per cent on the year.

Analyst firm IDC estimates that smartphone vendors will ship some 269.6 million handsets in 2010, up from 173.5 million the year before.

"The smartphone is the catalyst behind the rebound in the worldwide mobile phone market this year," said Kevin Restivo, a senior research analyst at IDC.

"Additional product introductions and an expected flurry of smartphone buying activity in the second half of the year will push the market well above previous expectations."

Symbian leads the market with a 40.1 per cent share, followed by BlackBerry with 17.9 per cent, Android with 16.3 per cent and Apple's iOS with 14.7 per cent.

Ramon Llamas, IDC's mobile devices technology and trends senior research analyst, said that Android has been a particularly strong performer, and is expected to represent 24 per cent of the market by 2014.

"Phone vendors have been drawn to Android because it allows them to present their own approach to the smartphone experience," said Llamas.

"Now that HTC and Motorola have leaped out in front with their own respective devices, other vendors such as Dell, Kyocera, LG and Samsung will soon help grow the Android market."

IDC is not alone in its forecasts for Android. Several other analyst firms have noted a surge in growth for the platform amid increased vendor adoption.