Everyone now days must has a smartphone, it seems. It has become a fashion craze to have an expensive smartphone even though people hardly use all the apps in the phone. According to a study conducted by a Australia research and consulting firm named Strategy Analytics, the number of smartphone users topped one billion in the third quarter of 2012. This is indeed great progress since the very first successful smartphone, the iPhone, was released only five years ago.
According to numbers, now one out of seven worldwide has is carrying a smartphone. This is great progress for technology and ranks the smartphone market as the most promising and fast growing industry. Thanks to Steve Jobs and iPhone, which revolutionized smartphone and changed the industry.
To be honest, iPhone is not the very first smartphone. The very first smartphone was the Nokia Communicator that came out on the market in 1996. However, most of people had trouble understanding and using that device. It was the iPhone that started the smartphone a craze with its innovative design and features in 2007. Ever since then, the smartphone market has kept on booming. In the third quarter of 2011, the number of smartphone users was 708 million. Even though there was a sharp decline in the economy and in the market, the number of smartphone users worldwide reached to 1,038 million.
However, this is only the beginning and the smartphone market is still in the development stage. Not everyone has a smartphone. But with technological advances, the use of smartphones is sure to increase. The findings from the study by Strategy Analytics also predict that the number of users will double to 2 billion in less than three years. This is the reason every major electronics company is trying to get a piece of this market. At the present moment, there is stiff competition between Apple, Samsung, HTC, Nokia and other companies. With Microsoft entering the market with its own Windows 8 smartphone, things will get even more competitive.
