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Mar. 21, 2008

Overall, the smartphone market will grow from around 10 percent of the total handset market last year, to about 31 percent of the market in five years from now, according to a new study from ABI Research.

The research firm attributes this growth up to a number of complex factors including carriers’ drives to grow data revenues from advanced services and the general trend to pushing smart operating systems down into middle-tier devices.

Stuart Carlaw, ABI Research v.p. says “smart operating systems are continually being optimized to run on processors with lower performance. There is a strategic move to support smart OSs in single chip midrange devices in order to unlock more data revenues.”

Carlaw added “the market is currently dominated by Nokia at 52 percent and Symbian at around 65 percent.

But the mere coalescence of the framework wars in the Linux environment and the growing stature of Windows Mobile will enable new competitors to put pressure on this established axis.”

The ABI report finds that the iPhone effect is truly filtering through the handset market as other OEMs strive to remain competitive.

Features that look set to proliferate and become central to enhancing user interface experiences include touchscreens, touchpads and accelerometers facilitating tilt and shock sensing, as well as haptics providing tactile feedback.

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Source: ABI Research.