1.7 billion smartphones by 2014

MANILA, Philippines - If you own a smartphone or two, then Analysys Mason says you’re among this specific group of users around the world whose number will balloon to 1.7 billion between now and 2014.

Who’s Analysys Mason? Well, it’s not a person but a company that delivers strategic advice, operations support, and market intelligence worldwide to leading commercial and public-sector organizations in telecoms, IT and media.

Analysys Mason has analysts like Jim Morrish, who heads the mobile content and applications research program and author of the report “Smartphones forecast to grow to 26 percent of handsets by 2014.”

According to Morrish, the number of smartphones in use worldwide is forecast to grow at an annual rate of 32 percent between 2010 and 2014.

More than half of this growth, he said, will be generated from developing markets in the Asia-Pacific and Latin America, while consumers from Western European, North American and developed Asia-Pacific markets combined will account for less than 30 percent of total growth.

“So, it is clear that the market for smartphones will transform over the coming years,” said Morrish.

“Smartphone markets in the developed world will continue to be fiercely competitive, but key handset manufacturers like Samsung are lining up to tap a new opportunity in emerging markets,” he added.

Furthermore, there will be key differences in competitive dynamics between developed and developing markets, Morrish continued.

“The ingredients of a successful mobile data proposition in emerging markets will be different to those in developed markets,” he said, emphasizing that he doesn’t think than “an iPhone will be one of them.”

In the medium term, Android-, bada- and Symbian OS-based devices will dominate these new markets, according to Analysys Mason’s principal analyst.

In his report, Morrish identified consumer devices, rather than business devices, to become the primary driver of growth.

“Ultimately, business handsets currently represent a little under 10 percent of all handsets in the market, so although we expect that in excess of 40 percent of business handsets will be smartphones by 2014, the sheer number of residential subscriptions dictates that residential users will drive the smartphone market growth,” he said.

Analysys Mason has over 300 staffers worldwide, with headquarters in London and offices in Cambridge, Dubai, Dublin, Edinburgh, Madrid, Manchester, Milan, Paris, Singapore and Washington DC.