Smart phones to hit 15 per cent of shipments this year

More appealing form factors...

Smart phones will soon make up a sizeable chunk of the mobile phone market, analysts believe.

According to a new report from ABI Research, smart phones will capture almost 15 per cent of the global mobile market this year - that's some 123 million devices.

ABI puts the upswing in smart phone 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 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.