• by Steve Smith  @popeyesm, November 11, 2011

Until now, we were happy just having our phones be “smart.” Now they are getting “super.” According to Strategy Analytics, the latest generation of smartphones that sport extra-large screens and faster processors constitute a new high-growth subcategory dubbed “superphones.”

With displays spanning at least 4 inches and processors running at 1GHz or higher to qualify for this supersized mobile category, the superphone market will have grown 200% this year -- leading all other classes of phones by a long shot, the company says. This muscled-up group of super-powered devices will be growing at 15 times the rate of smartphones, which are expected to expand only 13% in 2011 by comparison.

Cell phones in this category include the Samsung Galaxy S2 and HTC Sensation. If a rumored iPhone 5 appears next year with the larger screen that many have expected, then Apple will enter the superphone category. Neil Marston, director, strategy analytics, tells Online Media Daily that Apple can’t stay out of this field much longer.

“We expect the Apple iPhone 5 in 2012 to be a superphone design,” he says. “Superphones represent a next wave of growth after smartphones, and Apple cannot afford to ignore that trend. Apple’s sub-4-inch iPhone displays are arguably starting to look a little small when compared against larger superphones, such as Samsung’s Galaxy S2.

With their pocket-stuffing size, superphones likely appeal to a special niche of users, but Marston says they have an audience on both the supply side and the buy sides.

“Consumers and operators like the richer experience of larger screens and faster processing speeds that be be delivered by superphones,” he says. “Samsung is currently the world’s leading superphone vendor due to the success of its Android-powered Galaxy S2 model, and Samsung has been aggressively leveraging this leadership to attack rivals with much weaker superphone portfolios, such as Nokia, BlackBerry and even Apple.”

Earlier this month, both IDC and Strategy Analytics found that Samsung had surpassed Apple in smartphone shipments in the third quarter of 2011. IDC says Samsung now has 20% of the market in Q3 compared to Apple, with 14.5%. The Samsung Galaxy S2 has sold more than 10 million units.

Many analysts suspect that Apple’s slower growth in the quarter was attributed to consumers waiting for the next generation of iPhone to launch in October. While many observers expected Apple to launch an iPhone 5 that included a superphone-level 4-inch screen this year, the iPhone 4S at first seemed like a letdown. Record sales worldwide for the iPhone 4 upgrade suggest that the absence of a larger display did not dampen demand.

Smartphones with larger screens and faster processors surely favor the migration of ever more Web-based and other digital tasks to mobile platforms. “High-performance apps such as 3D games and 3D video are particularly well-suited to the high-speed 1GHz+ processors found in superphones,” says Mawston. “Larger displays and faster processors upgrade the user experience.”

Samsung and HTC especially have touted their superphone models as media-consumption devices capable of longer-form leanback viewing. As hardware makers vie for market share and differentiation, they may be looking to media and marketing for value-added content and special-offer bundles to highlight the hardware’s capabilities. It's not clear what limit there may be on display size for superphones, since Samsung and HTC have plans for pocket-stretching 4.7-inch screens as well.