Smartphones ‘to outsell feature phones by 2015′

Shipments of smartphones will climb to 1.03 billion units in 2015, accounting for over half of the global mobile market, new research has revealed.

According to the latest IHS iSuppli Mobile Handset Market Tracker, the fastest-growing category within the smartphone sector will be low-end devices – those with lower memory densities and features.

Shipments have been forecast to climb at a compound annual growth rate of 115.4 per cent from now until 2015, compared with 16.4 per cent for gadgets in the mid-range to high-end market.

"With their affordable prices, low-end smartphones are attractive to first-time users and to consumers in emerging economies where subscriber levels are rising at the fastest rates of all regions of the world," senior principal analyst with IHS Francis Sideco remarked.

This comes after Gartner revealed that sales of smartphones grew by 74 per cent year on year, accounting for 25 per cent of all transactions in the second quarter of this year.