FEATURE: The unstoppable smartphone

The market is big and its only going to get bigger, says new GfK research.

After many years of constant growth, the global electronic goods market declined by over two per cent in 2009 compared to 2008, reaching $681 billion. There's still good growth in LCD TVs, laptops, HD DVD players (Blu Ray) and smartphones. That's good, But in 2008, more than ten products were driving the market.

It would appear that we are at the end of a cycle of innovation, and are seeing an end to the amazing growth in many key sectors - with satnav down 15 per cent in 2008/9, multimedia players down 11 per cent and digital cameras down 11 per cent.

And you can include mobiles too.

The total mobile phone market sold 1.1 billion devices in 2009, down five per cent to mark its first ever decline. GfK forecasts it will return to growth by Q2 2010, although an annualised growth for the whole of 2010 is unlikely.

However, smartphones now account for 11 per cent of the mobile market; a two per cent increase over last year.