Smartphone growth to continue strong in 2010

The wireless chip industry expects smartphone market surge to continue, with British microchip designer ARM saying growth would likely even accelerate further next year. The smartphone market slowed drastically in the September quarter, but chip makers -- whose products are sold weeks, if not months, before phones are sold to consumers -- said they were seeing strong market growth, indicating third quarter slowdown was temporary. ARM's designs are in 90 percent of mobile phones, including Apple's iPhone and Nokia's new top-of-the-range model N900.