Global PDA shipments up 21% in Q3

Stan Beer
Wednesday, 02 November 2005 10:00

IT Industry - Market

Worldwide PDA shipments totaled 3.45 million units in the third quarter of 2005, 20.7% up on Q3 2004, according to research group Gartner.

Gartner says the market is on pace to reach 15 million units shipped in 2005, surpassing the record 13.2 million units shipped in 2001.

Wireless email and GPS enabled Navman style PDAs have fuelled much of the growth, according to Gartner.

"The rapid spread of wireless e-mail and use of GPS-enabled PDAs, which offer most of the functionality of dedicated car navigation systems at a fraction of the cost, is propelling the PDA market to record growth," said Todd Kort, principal analyst in Gartner's Computing Platforms Worldwide group. "This growth is most noticeable in Europe. In fact, Europe is catching up with North America in terms of usage of PDAs in vertical markets and cellular PDAs."

Research in Motion's (RIM) BlackBerry shipments grew 52.6% in the third quarter, as the company extended its lead as the top vendor in worldwide PDA shipments. RIM accounted for about half of the worldwide growth from one year ago. However, Blackberry PDA shipments were up less than 3% sequentially, as RIM's product mix is shifting a bit more toward its smartphones, which now account for an estimated 18% of RIM shipments.

However, the news was not positive across the board for all PDA vendors, with HP and PalmOne both big losers for the quarter.

HP's iPAQ shipments declined 20.2% in the third quarter, while PalmOne's PDA shipments declined 36%, resulting in a drop to the No. 3 position. Meanwhile, the Sidekick II and Pocket PC Phone Edition devices pushed T-Mobile into fourth place, with 305.5% growth.

Microsoft maintained its position as the leading PDA operating system supplier, with 49.2% of worldHwide shipments in Q3 2005, while RIM secured second place with 25% of the market. Palm OS was number three with 14.9%, Symbian was number four with 5.8%, while Linux has yet to make a significant impact in the PDA space with just 0.7% market share share.