Smartphone shipments will grow by 18.7 percent this year compared to last year, and will continue to grow at a compound annual rate of return of 19.5 percent through to 2014 when they will account for 29 percent of the market, according to predictions by Ovum. The factors driving this is the demand by consumers for third party apps and manufacturers concentrating on low and high-end phones, polarising the market.
Ovum predicts that Symbian will remain the market leader but lose marketshare, falling from 58 percent of the smartphone market in 2008 to 43 percent in 2014. Ovum classifies smartphones as those running Symbian OS, Windows Mobile, Android, OS X, BlackBerry OS, Palm (NSDQ: PALM) OS, Web OS and LiMo. Android is predicted to take second place, hitting 72 million units by 2014 and taking 18 percent of the smartphone market. Ovum thinks that people will mostly by smartphones based on the vendor managing their data and services on the device, such as Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) has started.
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