Battle of the OSes

In terms of operating systems, Canalys noted the decline in shipments of Symbian devices by the key Japanese vendors, and each of the top five hardware vendors largely allied to a different OS.

Despite being overtaken by Apple globally in the quarter, Microsoft has increased its share of the smart phone market year-on-year, helped by the volumes being achieved by vendors such as HTC and Samsung in particular.

Meanwhile, for Google's new phone OS Android, more vendors and a wider range of device designs will be needed before significant global shipment levels can be achieved.

Canalys expects that 2009 will see Symbian remain on top, but that it will be fairly closely fought between the other major smart phone operating systems, presenting operators and application developers with some challenges around where they deploy their resources.