Smartphone shipments tipped to boom

Smartphones will soon make up a sizeable chunk of the mobile phone market, analysts believe. According to a new report from ABI Research, smartphones will capture almost 15 percent of the global mobile market this year — that's some 123 million devices.

ABI puts the upswing in smartphone sales down to more appealing devices that shy away from clunkier form factors, as well as increasing interest in data services and the spread of the 3G coverage necessary to run many of them.

The gradual convergence of mobile phone and PC functionality also looks likely to continue, with ABI predicting that by 2010 a quarter of all smart devices will be packing embedded Wi-Fi.

The operating systems powering the devices will also come to play an important part in the development of the market, the analysts said, with both Linux and Windows Mobile devices expected to up their market share in the future.