No let-up in smartphone frenzy

The smartphone market is continuing to grow unabated, increasing 55 percent year on year.

According to research company Canalys, the smartphone market remains in rude heath, with several handset companies reporting strong growth in the segment.

Nokia remains top dog in converged devices, although its closest rival in the vanilla phone market, Motorola, is gaining a little ground here too, leapfrogging BlackBerry-maker RIM to become the second largest vendor of smartphones.

Canalys found Nokia sold around 9 million smart devices during the quarter, with Motorola notching up more than 1.6 million, followed by RIM with 1.2 million.

Motorola was able to beat RIM for the first time after shifting more than 1 million units in China, based on the Linux operating system, as well as the first sales of its Q smartphone, a Razr-inspired take on BlackBerry, Treo and the like.