Pyramid Research just published its Q3 2009 Handset Forecasts that show a dramatic increase in demand for smartphones. RIM which has 50% of the current smartphone marekt especially at Verizon.

Pyramid estimate smartphones will represent 31% of new handsets sold in the US in 2009, up more than double from 15% two years prior. Indeed, market leader Verizon claimed that smartphones represented 40% of its device sales in Q2 2009. These smartphone sales will be  propelled by US consumers' love for messaging and mobile Internet-based services on devices with qwerty keyboards, touch screens, HTML browsers, larger screens and sophisticated operating systems.

Pyramid believes that Verizon is the world leader in the sale of BlackBerry devices. Second place AT&T, the world leader in iPhone sales, reported similar success. AT&T sold 4.3m integrated devices in Q3 2009, and 75% were iPhones. At the end of the third quarter, 41.7% of AT&T's postpaid base had an integrated device, up from 22% in the year-ago period.

According to Pyramid smartphones will grow to comprise roughly 60% of new handsets sold in 2014. By then, they expect Apple's exclusive relationship with AT&T to have ceased, which could potentially make the iPhone available to an additional 200m US wireless customers.