Investors hoping to ride the current wave of smartphone growth can now buy shares of a new exchange-traded fund based on the NASDAQ’s CEA Smartphone Index.

The First Trust NASDAQ CEA Smartphone Index Fund trades under the ticker symbol FONE and “provides a convenient way for investors to take advantage of the positive trends that are shaping the smartphone industry,” the NASDAQ OMX Group Inc. said in a press release.

According to data released earlier this month by research firm Gartner Inc., worldwide smartphone sales to end users rose 72.1 percent in 2010 from 2009 and represented 19 percent of total mobile device sales in 2010. Overall sales of mobile devices grew 31.8 percent on the year.

The NASDAQ CEA Smartphone Index was launched in April in conjunction with industry group the Consumer Electronics Association. It currently tracks more than 65 companies involved in hardware and software for sophisticated mobile devices, as well as wireless network operators. Apple Inc., Google Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. are examples of the bellwethers on the index.

An exchange-traded fund is an investment fund that trades on stock exchanges and typically track an index.