n the first three months of this year, just under half of all the 45 million cellphones sold in Western Europe were smartphones – able to browse the web, send and receive e-mail, and run custom-written apps, including storing contacts and calendars, sending SMSes and making phone calls.
Worldwide, smartphones represent 24% of all cellphones worldwide between January and March – up from 15% a year before. The tipping point when they make up 50% may only be a year or so away. And before the end of the decade, every phone sold will be what we'd now call a smartphone.
This indicates a huge shift that's coming to computing, and was behind Microsoft's $8-billion splurge in May when it bought the Skype internet telephone service, and behind the rumours that Microsoft is going to buy Nokia, the Finnish company that makes most cellphone handsets and smartphones.
In the first three months of 2010, 85-million PCs were sold worldwide, compared with 55-million smartphones. Optimistic analysts forecast that the crossover might happen in 2012. Instead, by the last three months of 2010, 94 million PCs were sold – and 100 million smartphones. Analysts believe that this trend will never reverse.
"Smartphones will keep growing in sales approaching the billion-plus levels of total handset sales before this decade is done," says Tomi Ahonen, a former Nokia executive who now has his own mobile industry consultancy. "The trend of PC sales is stagnant or at best modest growth, selling around 300 million per year."
*Source: Mail & Guardian