YNOT EUROPE – By 2015, every mobile user in the UK will own a smartphone, according to a market analysis by consultancy mobileSQUARED.

The consultancy based its prediction on a study of consumer trends and market forces, extrapolating from existing statistics and forecast data.

At the end of 2010 there were approximately 19.67 million smartphones in the UK and 61.36 million feature phones or other devices,” a mobileSquared analyst wrote on the company’s website. “Every year, approximately 30 million handsets are sold in the UK, with approximately 80 percent of all contract users now taking a smartphone. Similarly, approximately 55 percent of all pay-as-you-go users also take a smartphone.”

Add in trending data about rates of adoption, and mobileSQUARED forecasts 32.44 million UK users will own a smartphone before the end of 2011 — more than 50 percent of the entire UK population. If trends remain steady — neither increasing nor decreasing due to economic or technology factors — smartphones will penetrate virtually 100 percent of the UK’s 63.83 million citizens by sometime in 2015.

“The increasing penetration of smartphones will have a massive impact on how we all consume and interact with media,” the mobileSQUARED analyst wrote. “Mobile marketing can only currently reach 100 percent of users via text-based campaigns. By 2015, however, similar reach could be obtained via in-app notifications, mobile social media or mobile optimised email.”

Market segments are likely to undergo significant shifts, the analyst indicated, with Android devices achieving 59.4 percent penetration by 2015. The consultancy expects Apple’s iPhone to drop to an 18.1-percent share and BlackBerry to hover at about 12-13 percent of the market.

In addition to the one-per-UK-resident smartphone ratio, about 22.1 million feature phones are expected to linger in the market, accounting for about 25.7 percent of all devices in use. However, within one year — by 2016 — mobileSQUARED expects that percentage to drop to less than 20. Symbian will all but disappear, the analyst predicted, and Windows Mobile-based phones may experience a resurgence in popularity.

“We also expect BlackBerry numbers to keep rising until fourth quarter 2012, before following the downward trend witnessed in North America,” he wrote.