Smartphones to grow 29 per cent

SEOUL: Samsung Mobile Display, a mobile display venture of Samsung Electronics, said on Sunday the global smartphone market was expected to grow to 500 million units in 2012 from 170 million in 2009.

Despite slowing economies worldwide and falling sales in the overall mobile phone market, sales of feature-jammed smartphones, such as Apple���s iPhone and Research In Motion���s BlackBerry, continue growing. Smartphones would account for 29% of the entire mobile phone market in 2012, compared with 14% in 2009, Samsung Mobile Display predicted.

The display maker also forecast that touchscreens would be adopted by about 50% of major portable devices ���mobile phones, digital cameras, navigations and digital media players ��� to be sold in 2013.