Smartphones to account for 17% of handset market in 2009, says TSR

Global smartphone shipments in 2009 will reach 183.6 million units, accounting for 17% of the total mobile handset markets, according to Techno Systems Research (TSR). While overall handset shipments will be down by 10% in 2009, smartphone shipments will be up 20% on year. By 2013, smartphones will account for 27.9% of the mobile handset market.

Demand for smartphones is expanding due to the spread of 3G services, Internet applications on mobile devices, and growing attention toward application stores, according to the Japan-based market research firm.

Among branded smartphone shipments, Nokia will have the highest share, at 34.7%, TSR forecast, but poor sales for the company's high-end handsets has led to a share decrease in recent years. Nokia mainly adopts the Symbian platform in its smartphones, but the vendor will also adopt its own Linux platform in the future. Research in Motion (RIM) will place second in the smartphone market this year on a high market share in North America and strong popularity in the enterprise. Apple's iPhone is expected to place third. However, Samsung is coming on strong, increasing its smart phone shipment volumes, while HTC, Taiwan's most established smartphone vendor, has struggled to grow its business.

Driven by Nokia smartphone shipments, Symbian will be the largest smartphone platform in 2009, accounting for 44% of the market, but the share has decreased from 2007 due to Nokia not being able to grow its market. The Blackberry will be the second leading platform while and Windows mobile will place third and Apple will place fourth, TSR stated.

Although receiving much of the media attention in the smartphone market, the Android platform, promoted by Google, is expected to account for 6.2 million units in 2009, compared with shipments of 10.8 million units for Limo Linux. In the long term though, Symbian and Android will be the leading smartphone platforms, TSR noted.

As for smartphone processors, Texas Instruments will account for the highest share, with a 41.8% share. TI is the main supplier of Nokia, and its processors will power smartphones based on Windows Mobile, Limo and the Android platform as well. However, TI will lose a big portion of their share starting 2010 once Nokia starts outsource more chipsets, TSR stated. Marvell will place second this year as the main supplier of RIM and its experience on Windows Mobile. Qualcomm will place third but the company has been expanding its share recently, especially in the Windows Mobile and Android market. Other major application processor vendors are Apple, Renesas, Panasonic, Samsung, ST-Ericsson, and Nvidia, TSR stated.

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