News: Global Smartphones

Renowned technology analysts, Strategy Analytics has released new figures which pegged the number of smartphones in use worldwide above 1 billion.
The research firm says the milestone was reached in Q3, 16 years after the first smartphone was launched in 1996.
It also predicted that the next billion will be achieved in less than three years – that is by 2015.
According to the Executive Director of the research group, Neil Mawston, it is estimated that one in seven of the world’s population owned a smartphone in the third quarter of 2012.
However, he added that smartphone penetration is still relatively low because “most of the world does not yet own a smartphone and there remains huge scope for future growth, particularly in emerging markets such as China, India and Africa.”
Corroborating him, senior analyst Scott Bicheno, recalled that “the world’s first modern smartphone, the Nokia Communicator, was introduced in 1996 and Nokia remained a dominant force in smartphones for over a decade until the arrival of Apple’s iconic iPhone in 2007,”
But the analysts said that the number of smartphones in use worldwide reached 1.038 billion units in Q3, up from 708 million in the same quarter a year ago.