The leadership position held by smartphone vendors Apple and RIM are coming under increasing threat from the likes of HTC and Samsung. While the two leading innovators continue to set the pace within their own niche--albeit that these are becoming increasingly blurred--the pace of technology innovation is helping HTC and Samsung to close the gap.
The market intelligence firm ABI Research claims that the smartphone market is now growing at an extraordinary pace--50 per cent in the last quarter compared with 12 months ago.
ABI points to one statistic to illustrate this runaway growth--Apple shipped 8.4 million iPhones during the second quarter (around 3 million being the iPhone4 model) resulting in a quarter-on-quarter growth of 68 per cent.
ABI and others believe this level of market expansion is totally unsustainable, with 10 per cent quarter-on-quarter growth being considered exceptional.
However, the state of this amazing market today, and a special summary of the top 5 European smartphones can be viewed by clicking here. - Paul