Smartphone Shipments Up 74% to 295 M. Units in 2010: Berg Insight

Taipei, March 21, 2011 (CENS)--Global shipments of smartphones increased 74% in 2010 to 295 million units, according to a new research report by Berg Insight.

The major market intelligence provider added that shipments of such mobile devices are forecasted to reach 1,200 million units in 2015, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 32.4%.

The global user base of smartphones increased at the same time by 38% year-on-year (YoY) to an estimated 470 million active users in 2010. In the next five years, the global user base of smartphones is forecasted to grow at a CAGR of 42.9% to reach 2.8 billion in 2015.

Smartphones are receiving more attention from handset manufacturers, network operators and application developers, the company said. Most importantly, an increasing number of users are now discovering how smartphones can act as personal computing devices enabling access to the mobile web and applications, besides voice and text services.

Although high-end devices tend to get most attention, the primary growth will come from medium- and low-end smartphones. "Chipset developers and handset vendors are working on technologies that will ensure a good user experience also for low cost smartphones", said Andre Malm, senior analyst of Berg Insight. "The challenge is to develop a handset with enough memory, graphics performance and processing power to run the operating system with multiple applications while ensuring a responsive system with fluid user interface and still keep costs down".

He added that smartphones in general will also benefit from advancements in chipset design. In the next five years, further performance increases will come from dual- or quad-core application and graphics processors. These new processors will enable smartphones to rival the performance of dedicated gaming consoles and notebook PCs.

At the same time, Berg Insight said, new user interfaces would be developed that make better use of sensors such as accelerometers and gyroscopes as well as cameras to detect movement or gestures without the need to touch the display.