In the Palm OS world, the topics “decline of the handheld” and “move to smartphone” are permanent topics as there is only one real manufacturer left(sorry GSPDA, but you don’t count). PocketPC users are better off with a variety of manufacturers alive and kicking…and IDC’s latest study allows us to look deeply into the manufacturer’s pockets.
|
Vendor |
Q1 2007 Shipments |
Q1 2007 Market Share |
Q1 2006 Shipments |
Q1 2006 Market Share |
1Q06/1Q05 Growth |
|
Palm |
295,250 |
32.1% |
475,000 |
30.7% |
-37.8% |
|
HP |
199,400 |
21.7% |
346,000 |
22.3% |
-42.4% |
|
Mio |
138,631 |
15.1% |
104,609 |
6.8% |
32.5% |
|
Dell |
78,000 |
8.5% |
143,100 |
9.2% |
-25.4% |
|
Sharp |
44,000 |
4.8% |
99,000 |
6.4% |
-55.6% |
|
Others |
164,635 |
17.9% |
381,490 |
24.6% |
-56.8% |
|
Total |
|
100.0% |
|
100.0% |
-40.6% |
Looking at these figures, we see that all manufacturers shipped less “handhelds” than in the year below. Palm still is the number one manufacturer, but HP, Mio and Dell alone have more market share. HP still is the number one of PocketPC’s, but Mio is closing in significantly, having almost tripled its market share.
Interestingly, the top 5 contains two walking dead - both Sharp and Dell have announced to exit the handheld market and are currently clearing out their inventory.
Last but not least, handheld shipments have dropped by 1/3 overall. IMHO, this is a matter of customer migration mostly…manufacturers like HP and Palm have recently begun to aggressively market their smartphones at customers instead of PocketPC’s…
What do you think?
Source: IDC