Over one quarter smartphone market grew 90%

The latest stats from IDC shows that the global smartphone market saw a nearly 90% growth over the third quarter with the high gains recorded for Samsung and HTC. The report says that vendors shipped 81 million smartphones, up 89.5% from the 42.8 million units shipped in the third quarter of 2009. For the first three quarters, vendors shipped 200.6 million smartphones, an increase of 67% over the 119.6 million shipped for the first three quarters in 2009.

IDC notes that the growth in the smartphones industry exceeds that of mobile phones by six times because customers seek browsing and multimedia functions on their mobile devices and as carriers expand the range of smartphone brands

"Smartphone makers have the wind behind their sales," said Kevin Restivo, an IDC analyst. He said the transition to smartphones appears unabated.

Nokia still leads the pack, with a 32.7% share of the market and 26.5 million smartphones shipped in the third quarter. Even with 61.6% year-over-year growth, Nokia's market share is shrinking amid new competition. Nokia launched the C7 and its first Symbian 3 device, the N8, and has plans for a device using the MeeGo operating system in 2011.