The HTC Touch Diamond has won the ‘EISA European Smart Phone 2008-2009′ award. Sales are expected to break the 1-million mark soon, 3 months after  HTC began to ship the Diamond that competes directly with the iPhone. Revenues for Taiwan’s largest mobile phone vendor, topped US$372.64 million for the first 7 months of this year, up 32.4% over the same period last year.

The company is confident of shipping more than 2 million Touch Diamond handsets by year-end and may be launching the smart phone soon in the US via Sprint Nextel. It is priced at S$498 (US$351)with a 2-year plan in Singapore.

HTC saw its smartphone shipments to the EMEA market surge 118.7% on year to 880,000 units in the 2nd quarter of 2008, accounting for 7% market share and RIM’s sales were ahead by a mere 0.2% share.

Smartphone sales in the EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) markets increased 28.2% from a year ago to reach 12.57 million and represented 13% of all mobile phone shipments in the second quarter of 2008, according to market research firm Canalys. Nokia’s the undisputed leader with 71.2% market share, up 14.6% YoY. Other vendors in the top five demonstrated much higher than average year-on-year growth and their shipments more than doubled.

IT research firm CCID reported that smartphones sales in China grew 32% from a year ago to reach 15 million units in the first half of 2008. Market share was led by Nokia (68.5%), Motorola (15-16%), Dopod and Amoi Electronics, the latter two each with less than 5% share.