In its latest Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, analyst firm IDC predicts that vendors will ship 472 million smartphones this year, up from approximately 305 million in 2010.
Further, that number will reach nearly a billion — some 982 million — shipped globally in 2015, the report said. Driving the move will be falling smartphones prices, along with increasing functionality, and lower cost data plans.
Microsoft’s Windows Phone, which also currently includes its aging Windows Mobile system, will go from a weak fifth place of 3.8 percent share this year to a strong second place of 20.3 percent in 2015, largely on the strength of the Nokia deal, IDC said.