Ever since the introduction of Apples’ first iPhone in 2007, US and global market demand for smartphones has grown at a tremendous pace, with demand for mobile data following right behind. In 2009 Apple sought to repeat history in 2010 with the release of their iconic iPad.

With premium market research from the world’s foremost publishers, Global Information (http://www.giiresearch.com) says the smartphone and tablet markets will remain red hot through at least 2017. Demand for smartphones has increased exponentially all over the world, encouraging many vendors to enter this lucrative market, and they’ve been followed by application developers, according to the research group.

The United States leads the global adoption curve and represents the most mature market for smartphones, according to the research group. The UK, in contrast, has lagged slightly behind the US market in smartphone uptake, which leads Global Information to forecast remarkable growth and penetration in their UK smartphone market forecast through 2017. After an astounding 300% uptake over the past decade, the UK market is still projected to grow at a CAGR [compound annual growth rate] of over 20% through 2017, pushing smartphones from 50% up to 80% of all mobile phones, and driving the market value to over $4.3 billion.

Canada’s growth has been slower, but their market is experiencing some upheaval as native son RIM witnesses the end of its long history of dominance, says Global Information. Even so, the Canadian smartphone market forecast through 2017 predicts a healthy CAGR of 13%, with Apple outpacing both RIM and Samsung over that time period.

Australia, like the UK, has also witnessed tremendous growth tripling the size of the smartphone market over the last 4 years, and while the Australian smartphone market forecast through 2017 is the slowest of these four — at a CAGR of 10% over five years – the market is still expected to reach over $3.72 billion in that period, reports Global Information.