"The growth in smartphones is a result of changing consumer behavior and a push by OEMs and mobile operators to develop new revenues through applications and services based on smartphone platforms," Leach said.

He added the collapse of the market for mid-tier handsets in 2009 is polarizing the handset market, with vendors and mobile operators focusing on two types of handset -- the low-end and high-end segments. The end result is a quickening of the replacement of 2G in favor of high-end 3G handsets, and greater volumes of smartphones.

Ovum announced they expect such factors to grow smartphone shipments by 18.7% between 2008 and 2009 despite the overall decline during the same period in the total mobile phone market. This growth will continue at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 19.5% until 2014, at which point smartphones will account for 29% of the total global handset market.