Smartphones are selling, well, like smartphones these days with a new Gartner study reporting worldwide sales hitting 32.3 million units in the second quarter of 2008—a 15. 7 per cent jump over the second quarter of 2007.

Despite a continued sluggish economy the North American market is still one of the fastest growing segments with an increase of 78.7 percent year to year. While Nokia is still tops worldwide, with 47.5 percent share in the second quarter, growth year to year was just about half of the market average, according to Gartner, which attributes the trend to increasing competition and new features such as touch technology.

"To stay competitive, Nokia will need to introduce more design variations amongst its Nseries models and keep innovating," Roberta Cozza, an analyst at Gartner, stated in a press release. "The expected introduction of a touch-screen smartphone in the second half of 2008 will test the company's capability to show differentiation and innovation," Cozza added.

Some of that innovation arrived last week when Nokia debuted a new mobile music subscription in the UK. The Finnish handset maker also recently launched three new models in its Nseries line of phones.

Yet any sales slowdown experienced by Nokia or other market players will be reversed by the end of the third quarter given iPhone 3G sales and new touch smartphone models coming into play, according to Gartner.

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