Smartphones may eclipse PC mkt by 2012

BANGALORE,INDIA:Demand for Apple Inc.’s iPhone and Google Inc.’s Nexus One will help propel smartphone sales past those of personal computers in two years according to a new Gartner Inc. forecast.

According to the Stamford, Connecticut-based research firm, smartphone sales will more than triple to 491.9 million units by 2012 from 139.3 million in 2008,  The PC market will expand to 443.1 million units from 290.8 million in the same period, Gartner predicted on March 4, according to a Bloombert report.

“Smartphones are headed towards that billion-unit category that handsets are in today,” said Jim McGregor, an analyst at research firm In-Stat in Scottsdale, Arizona. “The smartphone is the billion-unit pot of gold that everyone wants.”

The rise of the smartphone has prompted the computer industry to respond with their own products in an attempt to retain control over consumer access the Internet.

The report states that Intel Corp., the largest maker of computer chips, has revived an earlier failed attempt to get its processors into phones. So far, only LG Electronics Inc. has said it will make a phone using an Intel chip. Microsoft Corp., the biggest maker of computer software, unveiled a new version of its Windows mobile phone operating system earlier this month, aiming to hold off gains made by Apple and Google.

Apple fired up interest in phones that double as handheld computers with the first iPhone, introduced in 2007. Google, owner of the world’s most visited search engine, has since responded with the Nexus One handset and Android operating system, which is being used by phone makers such as Motorola Inc. (Source Bloomberg)