Nokia, BlackBerry maker RIM and Apple all saw strong growth during the fourth quarter of 2009, in which the worldwide smartphone market grew by 30 percent. Strategy Analytics expects 2010 to be the year of “smartphone wars” which will be good for consumers but a challenge for vendors.
– While inexpensive
netbooks helped keep the PC industry afloat through the recession,
feature-rich smartphones, by contrast, are “leading the handset industry out of
the recession,” wrote Strategy Analytics analyst Tom Kang, in a Feb.
1 report.

Global smartphone shipments reached a record …