New figures released by GfK show two clear trends emerging in smartphone handset preferences.
A survey in Europe shows phones with an advanced operating system and touchscreen technology is winning over older keypad type handsets.
The number of handsets sold with an advanced OS doubled over the last 13 months, rising from 13.8 percent to 26.9 percent. One in five units sold in Europe in September 2010 had an Android OS, up from one in 20 units sold six months earlier.
The UK is said to lead the trend in Europe with advanced OS representing 43. 4 percent of handsets.
Phones with touchscreen technology also proved popular with over a third of handsets sold in Europe in September 2010 being touchscreen models. This was up 21 percent compared to September 2009. This compares to one in five in Asia and one in 10 in the Middle East and Africa.
“The smartphone phenomenon is fuelling the growth we see in global mobile phone sales, in some countries half of the phones sold in October were smartphones,” commented GfK’s Global Telco Marketing Director, Aaron Rattue.” Together with the expected boom in media tablets, this will mean the battlegrounds of the mobile web and operating system will be even more competitive in 2011.”
