[Berg Insight reports smartphone shipments continue to accelerate at an average compound growth rate of 25.6 percent.]

Gothenburg, Sweden -- According to new research report from the analyst firm Berg Insight, global shipments of smartphones running advanced operating systems will reach 113 million units in 2007. Increasing at an average annual compound growth rate 25.6 percent, shipments are forecasted to reach 365 million units by 2012. Smartphones will then account for over 22 percent of all handsets worldwide, compared to 10 percent today.

Berg Insight estimates that Symbian OS was the leading smartphone operating system in 2006 with a market share of 63 percent. Linux was the second largest platform, followed by Windows Mobile. "Nokia's commitment to Symbian OS as the core of the S60 platform is the key to its success," said Andre Malm, telecom analyst, Berg Insight. "In the future there will however be increasingly strong competition from Linux for consumer devices and Windows Mobile in the enterprise segment."

Microsoft's performance in the smartphone segment is consistently improving, even though Windows Mobile is still far from threatening either Symbian OS or Linux for the top market positions. The once popular PDA operating system Palm OS has virtually disappeared from the market and is now being converted into a version of Linux. Apple's OS X will become a new entrant on the smartphone operating systems market this year with the launch of the iPhone.

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