IDC has recently published a new forecast that expects smartphone shipments to increase at a compound annual growth rate of 20.9% until 2013, reaching 390 million units worldwide.

The report also says that Symbian will remain as the leading smartphone operating system throughout the forecast period, with the number of Android devices growing by a CAGR of 150.4% to reach 68 million units by 2013 – putting it in second place behind Symbian.

Independent application store Mobango says it's experienced a 500% increase in downloads in the last 12 months, reaching 23 million downloads in December 2009. Unlike other app stores, Mobango has a 'social' element to its download policy and encourages users to distribute downloaded apps to their friends.

Mobango's app store was launched less than two years ago and now has over 20,000 mobile applications that work on Symbian, Android, Flash Lite, Palm, Java, BlackBerry and Windows Mobile platforms.

Natalia Ardanza of voanews.com writes:

In Africa there is another use for mobile phones. Public Health workers in Kenya are now using mobile phones to gather health information from patients in remote areas and upload it to the internet for instant analysis at distant centers. And it is all happening thanks to Dr Joel Selanikio.

Motorola says it's filed a complaint with the US International Trade Commission, claiming that Research In Motion – the manufacturer of BlackBerry devices – is importing and selling products that infringe on five Motorola patents. There's already a patent litigation case going through the courts but Motorola says this new action is necessary because of "RIM’s continued unlicensed use of Motorola’s patents, RIM’s use of delay tactics in our current patent litigation and RIM’s refusal to design out Motorola’s proprietary technology".

Motorola has asked the ITC to investigate RIM’s use of Motorola’s patents and – as seems usual with these cases – to block imports and prevent sales of RIM products that infringe Motorola's patents.

Mark Bridge writes:

I remember a report from last year that said ‘non-smart’ touchscreen handsets – generally those without a popular operating system – would be bad news for mobile operators.

Conventional touchscreen smartphones tended to result in higher-than-average ARPU thanks to their early-adopting tech-loving users, their web-friendly browsers, their email programs, their app-friendly operating systems and their fast 3G connectivity. However, dumber touchscreen devices – those with a manufacturer’s own proprietary OS and perhaps a clumsier browser – could generate 23% less ARPU than smarter phones. So, if touchscreen dumbphones weren’t good for networks… and weren’t really good for consumers either… manufacturers wouldn’t really bother with them. Right?