Taiwan shipped 6.2 million smart handheld devices in the fourth quarter, up 81.7 percent on last year.

The Market Intelligence Centre said in a forecast that the country will ship a similar amount of the devices over the first three months of 2008, which would be more than 150 percent up on the same period this year.

One of the reasons for the huge growth has been the success of the Apple iPhone. The biggest winner has been the High Tech Computer Corporation. New Palm and HP models had also been outsourced to Taiwanese manufacturers.