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One billion people have got smart. Smartphones that is.
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There are now more than 1 billion smartphone users globally, analysts revealed today.
Not bad for a device just 16 years old.
Or put it another way, 1 in 7 of the world’s population owns a smartie, whether its an iPhone, Samsung, HTC, BlackBerry, a Windows Phone or any number of devices flooding on the market.
The number of smart mobiles in use worldwide surpassed the 1 bn mark, or 1.038 bn to be precise, for the first time ever in the third quarter, Strategy Anlystics said today.
The first “modern” smartphone, the Nokia Communicator, was born in 1996, before anyone even heard of an iPhone or Samsung Galaxy.
Nokia remained a dominant force in smartphones for over a decade until the arrival of the game changing iPhone a year after Nokia got smart in 2007.
“The iPhone revolutionized smartphone design and it catalyzed industry growth,” Strategy analysts declared.
Today the smartphone industry looks a lot different with Google Android now at the top of the smartphone pile, followed by Apple, powering around 65% of all devices between them.
Almost 300 million new smartie owners have come onboard in the past year alone, as prices fall. In Q3 2011 there were 708 million devices in use.
Most of the world does not yet own a smartphone and there is a huge scope for growth, especially in emerging markets such as China, India and Africa.
“The first billion smartphones in use worldwide took 16 years to reach, but we forecast the next billion to be achieved in less than three years, by 2015,” says Strategy.
