Gartner has predicted that sales within the industry will grow by 29 per cent year-on-year, which means it will reach 190 million units in 2009.
According to the organisation, this is now overtaking sales of notebooks and as a result, many PC vendors will expand into the smartphone market because they feel it is an area of opportunity they cannot ignore.
Roberta Cozza, principal research analyst at Gartner, said that computer manufacturers need to realise that "convergence of technologies offers an opportunity to enter into the smartphone arena, the business models, go to market and positioning of products is very different from the PC market".
In other news from Gartner, the organisation recently asserted that if firms adopt a shared services model, they may be able to reduce their enterprise content management.
