Last year, one in 10 handsets sold was a smart phone, but ABI Research Inc. projects by 2013, one in three will be smart phones. In a recent report, dubbed Smartphone and OS Markets, Oyster Bay, N.Y.-based ABI says the major drivers of the smart phone market will be the demand for “smart” operating systems in mid-tier devices.
Although the smart phone market is dominated by Nokia and Symbian, ABI says the rise of open source software such as Linux, plus Windows Mobile, will provide some competition for established players.
In another report, an ABI Research survey found 14 per cent of respondents use their mobile phones to watch video., from either YouTube, their carrier’s own service or videos they sideloaded on to their mobile devices. Nearly half of the survey repondents who use their phones to listen to music said they side-loaded the files from CDs, while 35 per cent said they bought their music from their carrier.
