Smartphones Outshine Handheld Computers

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AMSTERDAM: Nokia has overtaken PalmOne as the world's top seller of mobile computers in the first quarter, as consumers chose smartphones over handheld computers to organise their lives, a survey showed on Tuesday.

Finland's Nokia increased its market share to 28.2 per cent, up from 21.5 per cent in the first quarter of 2003, while US-based PalmOne saw its share dwindle to 16.8 per cent from 26 per cent, British research group Canalys said.

Nokia's ascent comes on the back of sales of its smartphones which, like handheld computers, offer personal organisers and can be loaded with different types of application software. Nokia sold 1.67 million of the advanced phones, up from 900,000 a year earlier.

Until about 18 months ago, Nokia only participated in the mobile computing market with its bulky Communicator, but its Series 60 software has brought advanced software and features to much smaller and lighter models. Other phone makers such as Siemens, Sendo and Samsung also use Series 60.

The total market grew by 41 per cent to 5.93 million units, but global shipments of smartphone products more than doubled, while shipments of handheld computers made by the likes of PalmOne and Hewlett-Packard remained virtually flat.

Smartphones were most popular in Europe and Asia. Some two out of every three mobile devices sold in Asia and Europe were smartphones, versus just one in three last year.

"As the number and range of smartphones available on the market increases, handhelds will come under even more pressure," Canalys analyst Rachel Lashford said.

HP loses, RIM wins

Hewlett-Packard, which built its iPaq brand in standalone handheld computers, saw its market share slip to 9.7 per cent from 10.6 per cent.

It clung on to a world No. 3 spot as it was included in large numbers of car navigation bundles in Europe, where route finder software is sold with an iPaq. Navigation software for smartphones was only introduced in recent months.

PalmOne still has a lead over HP due to its stronger US retail performance where it outsells HP two to one.

Canada's Research in Motion made a leap to the global number four spot with a 6.4 per cent share, up from 2.2 per cent. Its Blackberry e-mail and organiser products were fitted with colour screens and sleeker designs, and it struck deals with mobile telecom services in Europe which boosted sales.

In North America, handhelds still account for the majority of mobile device shipments, but have fallen from a very high 83 per cent to 59 per cent, while smartphones have increased to 23 per cent from 10 per cent.

PalmOne created the handheld computer market and "has more of a cult following in the United States", which explains the persistent success of that category there, Lashford said.

After the takeover of Handspring, PalmOne is one of the few vendors that makes both handheld computers and smartphones.

[emmi 3]

When giving an option of pda and mobile+pda, its obvious that everyone will chose pda+phone.

But the pda is more powered than the smart phone, any way u will get value for money if u chose smart phone.