In the face of continued economic uncertainty, high-end mobile devices such as smartphones are still experiencing robust growth, with consumers increasingly seeking well-designed devices with innovative features and applications.

According to ‘The Race of Smartphones, What Next? Impetus in OS and Technology Innovation in Smartphones' by analyst Frost & Sullivan (F&S), mobile operators will likely to collaborate with significant participants from the Internet community, the media and the entertainment industry to boost further the appeal of advanced handsets.

F&S found that by the end of 2008, 147.8 million smartphones were shipped in North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Latin America and expected this to grow to 442.9 million by 2014. By 2014, Asia Pacific was predicted to ship 161.9 million smartphones, with Western Europe accounting for 85.4 million devices.

Commented Frost & Sullivan Senior Industry Analyst, Saverio Romeo, "users are moving towards a complex and rich mobile experience made of communication, entertainment and productivity services. The smartphones are the right devices for this experience. Their role will increasingly become vital in the mobile communications market driving diffusion of new services and applications." And mobile video is no doubt among the most important of these applications.

However, F&S cautioned that falling average sale prices will continue to influence the revenue growth rate. In addition, it thought that diversified operating system (OS) platforms; intense competition among smartphone manufacturers and poor battery life of smartphones to support multiple access technologies would hinder the smartphone market in the next 4-5 years.

"The smartphone market will remain highly fragmented in the next five years," Romeo added. "Although traditional participants across the smartphone value chain will continue to dominate the market, there will be more collaboration between consumer electronic device manufacturers, and new technology vendors will be the trendsetters in the mobile market."