Mobile handset sales continued their global growth last quarter thanks largely to the increased sales of smartphones. According to data from analytics firm Gartner, smartphone sales were up over 50 percent year-over-year for a total of 61.6 million units sold, with the top four OS vendors accounting for 91 percent of the worldwide smartphone OS market.

Handset sales in general grew by 13.8 percent during the second quarter of 2010 compared to 2009, with smartphones making up 19 percent of overall device sales. Gartner noted that new products from Apple, HTC, and Motorola helped boost the numbers, and predicted that the launches of updated operating systems would keep growth going throughout the rest of 2010.

The top four smartphone OSes were Symbian (41.2 percent), RIM (18.2 percent), Android (17.2 percent), and iOS (14.2 percent), with Android phones eclipsing iOS devices during the quarter and taking the number three spot away from Apple. This is not all that surprising, given the