Gartner: 1.6 billion mobile device sales in 2010, smartphones up 72 percent

A recent report released by technology research and business insight company Gartner revealed worldwide mobile device sales to end users grew to 1.6 billion units in 2010, up 31.8 percent from 2009. Furthermore, smartphone sales increased by 72.1 percent from 2009 and accounted for 19 percent of all mobile device sales in 2010. 

"Strong smartphone sales in the fourth quarter of 2010 pushed Apple and Research In Motion up in our 2010 worldwide ranking of mobile device manufacturers to the No. 5 and No. 4 positions, respectively, displacing Sony Ericsson and Motorola," said Carolina Milanesi, research vice president at Gartner. "Nokia and LG saw their market share erode in 2010 as they came under increasing pressure to refine their smartphone strategies."

The market for smartphones continued to be concentrated in areas with advanced markets, such as Western Europe and North America. In these areas, users have access to better network speeds and typically have more disposable income.

"Western Europe and North America accounted for 52.3 percent of global smartphone sales in the fourth quarter of 2010, with smartphones accounting for close to half of all handsets sold in these regions," said Roberta Cozza, principal research analyst at Gartner.

In addition, businesses have been a large factor in sales, many offer them to employees as a method for greater mobility management for those employees out of the office. Because of the benefits of smartphones and other mobile devices, such as tablet computers, several reports believe companies will soon trend toward mobile technology over enterprise PC use entirely.

"With the Mobile World Congress 2011 taking place next week, we can expect smartphones and tablets to be at center stage of the show, and a number of new application announcements such as 3D technology, improved user interfaces around touch, faster networks on LTE technology, and new forms of payments, such as near field communication available on smartphones," Milanesi said.

A recent report from Deloitte found that businesses accounted for 25 percent of all tablet purchases made during the last year.

With both smartphone devices and tablet computers on the market, Apple, Samsung and Research In Motion – whose BlackBerry PlayBook tablet will be released later this year – all experienced fluctuation in the market as competition continues to increase. Regarding smartphone operating systems, Nokia's Symbian maintained the top spot with a 37.6 percent market share, while Google's Android grew by 888.8 percent and occupied 22.7 percent of the market, good for second place. Research In Motion, with 16 percent, and the iOS with 15.7 percent, were third and fourth, respectively.

With continued growth among the smartphone market – and the tablet computer world shows more signs of increasing – the mobile technology world should see sustained growth and possibly even greater numbers in future reports.