Sales of smartphones shoot up

Smartphone sales in the final quarter of 2009 grew by over 41 per cent on the same period in 2008, Gartner has said.

The information technology research and advisory company reported that almost 54 million smartphones were sold in the fourth quarter of last year.

Overall, 172.4 million smartphones were bought in 2009, an increase of almost 24 per cent on 2008 according to the Competitive Landscape: Mobile Devices, Worldwide, 4Q09 and 2009 report.

This growth in smartphone adoption could be reflected in the uptake of mobile VoIP solutions, as smartphone handsets have the capability to utilise apps that emulate VoIP phones.

Google's Android and Apple's iPhone OS were the best performers in the smartphone operating system market in 2009. Gartner expects operating systems to drive the smartphone market in 2010.

Carolina Milanesi, research director at Gartner, said: "We can expect 2010 to retain a strong focus around operating systems, services and applications while hardware takes a back seat".

The number of Wi-Max deployments worldwide in 2009 far outstripped deployments of LTE and HSPA, TeleGeography has said.

Wi-Max has the potential to boost the availability of mobile IP telephony solutions, as networks using the technology offer fully mobile internet access.