As the demand for these smart phones increase, more and more players are jumping into the market. The market is flooded with operating system for mobile and to choose a smart phone is more tough than ever today. To help you a little, here is a list of top five smart phones available in the market today:

Apple iPhone 3 GS

Motorola Droid

HTC Touch Pro 2

RIM Blackberry Bold 9700

Palm Pre

According to the Press Release by IDC, the number of mobile internet users which stands at 450 million in 2009 is expected to more than double in a span of four years. While the popular activities on mobile internet remained same as the other internet users, online shopping, networking and blogging are expected to be the application which will grow the most in coming years.

Few highlights from the research:

• More than 1.6 billion people – a little over a quarter of the world’s population – used the Internet in 2009. By 2013, over 2.2 billion people – more than one third of the world’s population – is expected to be using the Internet.

• More than 1.6 billion devices worldwide were used to access the Internet in 2009, including PCs, mobile phones, and online videogame consoles. By 2013, the total number of devices accessing the Internet will increase to more than 2.7 billion.

• China continues to have more Internet users than any other country, with 359 million in 2009. This number is expected to grow to 566 million by 2013. The United States had 261 million Internet users in 2009, a figure that will reach 280 million in 2013. India will have one of the fastest growing Internet populations, growing almost two-fold between 2009 and 2013.

• Presently, the United States has far more total devices connected to the Internet than any other country. China, however, is the leader in in the number of mobile online devices with almost 85 million mobile devices connected to the Internet in 2009. The number of Internet devices in India, both mobile and fixed, is expected to grow commensurate with the number of Internet users.

• Worldwide, more than 624 million Internet users will make online purchases in 2009, totaling nearly $8 trillion (both business to business and business to consumer). By 2013, worldwide eCommerce transactions will be worth more than $16 trillion.

• Worldwide spending on Internet advertising will total nearly $61 billion in 2009, which is slightly more than 10% of all ad spending across all media. This share is expected to reach almost 15%% by 2013 as Internet ad spending grows surpasses $100 billion worldwide.

Image Source: The UK Mobile Phone Blog

Touch screen phones are something everybody can use and would like to posses unlike smart phones which explains the difference in the growth rate. The trend of touch screen phones was set by iPhone and clearly dominates the market with a huge share of close to 33 percent followed by LG Dare at about 9 percent while all the other top devices seem to have high competition among themselves.

LG seems to be doing really well in the touch screen arena with three phones in the top ten list. The paper also said smart phones and touch screen both are popular with the age group under 35 with 51.4 and 57.7 percent respectively.