According to the latest research from Strategy Analytics, global Android smartphone shipments will grow 900% in 2009. Healthy support from operators, vendors and developers is driving adoption. Apple iPhone OS will be the next fastest-growing smartphone operating system in 2009, with a 79% growth rate. The full report, Global Smartphone Vendor Market Share by Region: 2008, is published by the Strategy Analytics Wireless Smartphone Strategies service and is available for download.

Despite tough corporate and unemployment news making the headlines, the mobile handset-buying public did not head to the hills during the first quarter of 2009. Mobile phone vendors had shipped 258 million cell phones by the end of the quarter. Although that represents an 11% year-over-year decline, the result significantly exceeded the previous forecast of 253.5 million. “Green shoots are sprouting,” is how ABI Research vice president Jake Saunders describes the latest figures.

SanDisk, the inventor and world’s largest supplier of flash storage cards, announced that four new 1,000-song, genre-specific slotRadio cards are available for sale. The new slotRadio cards (starting at $39.99 MSRP, U.S.) give consumers instant access to some of their favorite styles of music, including Rock, Country, Oldies and Hip Hop and R&B. Each new SlotRadio card contains several hand-crafted playlists featuring songs from Billboard’s top charting artists. Designed to be paired with the SanDisk Sansa slotRadio player, the plug-and-play music cards deliver true music enjoyment.

Samsung Telecommunications America, (Samsung Mobile) a leading mobile phone distributor in the United States and Paramount Digital Entertainment announced the availability of a 2G microSD card pre-loaded with the Mission Impossible Trilogy with the purchase of a Samsung Delve mobile phone from Alltel Wireless. This is the first time that Samsung Mobile and Paramount Digital Entertainment have worked together to bundle full-length feature films to add promotional value to its premium mobile phone, without creating a price impact on its carrier partners or consumers.

SanDisk announced that LG Electronics’ latest fully loaded LG Arena (LG-KM900) multimedia handset will include SanDisk’s iNAND 8 gigabyte (GB) Embedded Flash Drive (EFD). The SanDisk iNAND storage device will be utilized by the LG Arena handset as both a boot and data storage device, eliminating the need for a separate boot device. “Fast and reliable digital storage is essential to LG’s mobile multimedia user experience,” said Mr. Kwak Woo Young, Executive Vice President of LG Electronics Mobile Handset R&D Center. “Because of this, we’ve chosen top-of-the-line SanDisk memory for our new LG Arena multimedia phone.”

Schlage, the most trusted brand of door locks, announced that the first wireless-controlled and Z-Wave enabled door lock, Schlage LiNK, is now available for purchase through Amazon and GoKeyless. Fusing home security and automation with mobile technology, Schlage LiNK deadbolts and locks provide homeowners the power to remotely control and monitor access to their home 24/7 with any web-enabled mobile phone or computer.

The Strategy Analytics Wireless Device Lab service report, “US Navigation: Consumers Prefer PNDs to Mobile Solutions,” shows that consumers perceive personal navigation devices (PNDs) as clearly superior to similar navigation services available on cell phones. These findings are based on in-depth one-on-one research sessions in San Diego in which consumers experienced two high-end personal navigation devices as well as Sprint Navigation and VZ Navigator.

The impact of the global economic crisis will spread to the mobile phone market resulting in a downturn in shipments in 2009. According to IDC, total mobile phone volumes will be 1.9% lower in 2009 than 2008 levels, the first downturn in annual shipment volumes since 2001 when shipments declined 2.3%. Over the past several years, the mobile phone market has enjoyed double-digit annual growth due to an increased emphasis on emerging markets. However, emerging market growth has been steadily slowing as these markets mature. IDC now expects worldwide growth to be just 7.1% in 2008 before slipping into negative growth in 2009.

Oki Electric Industry announced it will start volume shipment of a headphone amplifier LSI, the Oki ML2650, from December 2008. This new LSI enables battery-powered mobile phones to play back music with low-power consumption, which is achieved by a highly efficient D-class amplifier equipped with a 64KB SRAM that temporarily saves music data. In addition, the LSI comes in an ultra small package size of 2.54mm x 2.70mm.

The smartphone market in the United States has grown rapidly since the introduction of the Apple iPhone. Demand for smartphones and the software applications that run on them provides an increasingly profitable revenue source for handset manufacturers, mobile operators, and application developers. This Smartphone report defines smartphones and covers a brief history of smartphones. Next, the reasons for smartphone adoption are explored as well as the barriers to acceptance of these advanced mobile devices.