Twice as many smartphones will ship worldwide this year as last year, according to a new study from New York-based ABI Research. The analyst forecasts 123 million of these advanced handsets will make it to market in 2006, giving them a record 15 percent share of total mobile phone sales.

Like The Diffusion Group found a few weeks ago, the race is between three mobile platforms - Symbian, Microsoft's Windows Mobile and Linux.

Third place Linux backers include Motorola, Samsung, NEC and Panasonic. And it just received a boost when PalmSource finally set forth its own Linux initiative, the ACCESS Linux Platform (ALP) for smartphones recently.

ABI senior analyst Philip Solis said number two " Windows Mobile OS is gaining ground too, while Symbian, whose OS is currently the hands-down market share winner, is attempting to stave off competitors by halving its license fees for volume deals." The Diffusion Group predicted Windows Mobile would overtake Symbian by the end of the decade, with Linux landing next in line. All three would hold market shares in the 20 to 30 percent ranges.

Both Microsoft and British-based Symbian announced plans to bring their mobile operating systems to single-core handsets to help lower smartphone prices at 3GSM a couple of weeks ago as well.

Modern data services are an important factor in the rise of smartphones. Solis explained, "Increasing demand for robust data communications applications — especially mobile e-mail and instant messaging — will play a role, particularly as 3G speeds improve the appeal of mobile data services."

The availability of far more advanced handsets, technical improvements and smaller sizes are all significant as well. "With increasing sales volumes, prices are falling fast, while the choice of models on offer is growing rapidly (39 percent more models were available in 2005 than in 2004). Even as their functionality expands, smartphones are shrinking in size, offering lower power consumption and longer battery life. Finally, Wi-Fi is reaching into the smartphone, and we expect to see fully a quarter of all models offering embedded Wi-Fi by 2010," Solis added.

Brands
Palm’s Treo handsets has other smartphone models beat when it comes to brand loyalty, according to another research firm Brandimensions. Unlike the ABI study, Brandimensions measured consumer sentiment for specific devices, including RIM's BlackBerry handhelds, HP's iPAQ Pocket PC Phones - to some analysts iPAQs and most BlackBerrys are cellular-wireless handhelds and not smartphones - and Motorola's (as-of-yet unavailable) Q communicator.

Brandimensions says it searched over 150 million Internet sites and analyzed relevant consumer comments posted online between April 2005 and February 2006. The results conclude that while BlackBerry has the largest market share in this segment, it lacks a strong brand loyalty among its customers. That's surprising when you consider their reputation for being addictive and nickname, "crackberries."

Overall, consumers felt that Treo - which generated far more discussion than BlackBerry - is perceived as a superior device; citing greater functionality, including camera and video playback. The analyst said the impact of the RIM lawsuit is small, but people believe the company mishandled it.

It also said the iPAQ's Wi-Fi capability makes those Pocket PC Phone models a favorite, even though they generated only a small level of discussion, and the Motorola Q is perceived well even though it produced the least amount of buzz. Again, surprising, considering how much the Internet rumor mill and blogs have covered every spec of information about the Q since its inception.