Gartner PDA Report for Q1 2006
Worldwide PDA shipments totaled 3.65 million units in the first quarter of 2006, a 6.6 percent increase from the first quarter of last year, according to Gartner, Inc. Gartner's numbers primarily reflect handhelds and PDA's (and do not include Treo shipments), however the company does include some RIM smartphone devices that they classify as PDA's with cellular radios.
"The average selling price of PDAs fell 2.7 percent compared with one year ago to $395, mostly because of the lack of many new models entering the market in the quarter and commanding premium prices," said Todd Kort, principal analyst in Gartner's Computing Platforms Worldwide group. Many wireless carriers are bypassing Enhanced Data for Global Evolution (EDGE) in favor of Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS), which along with a shortage of UMTS chips, is resulting in a slowdown in new cellular PDA launches."
RIM
The industry's growth rate was mainly attributed to Research In Motion's (RIM) sales of BlackBerry units. RIM's worldwide PDA shipments grew 30.8 percent in the first quarter of 2006 (see Table 1). RIM accounted for 25.5 percent of all PDA shipments in the quarter. RIM shipped approximately 1.45 million BlackBerry units in the first quarter, but 517,000 of these were BlackBerry 71xx models that Gartner classifies as smartphones.
Palm
Palm PDA shipments declined 25.2 percent, as its attention has shifted to Palm's Treo smartphone business. Palm PDA shipments are at their lowest level since 1998. However, Treo shipments were 581,000, with an estimated 20 percent of these being the new Treo 700w. Treo shipments are recorded in Gartner's quarterly smartphones report.
Worldwide: Preliminary PDA Vendor Shipment Estimates, 1Q06 (Units)
| Company | 1Q06 Shipments | 1Q06 Market Share (%) | 1Q05 Shipments | 1Q05 Market Share (%) | 1Q05- 1Q06 Growth (%) |
| Research In Motion | 929,883 | 25.5 | 711,000 | 20.7 | 30.8 |
| Palm | 459,970 | 12.6 | 614,750 | 17.9 | -25.2 |
| Hewlett-Packard | 421,336 | 11.5 | 601,352 | 17.5 | -29.9 |
| Mio Technology | 216,728 | 5.9 | 119,622 | 3.5 | 81.2 |
| Dell | 143,200 | 3.9 | 217,000 | 6.3 | -34.0 |
| Others | 1,482,433 | 40.6 | 1,164,564 | 34.0 | 27.3 |
| Total | 3,653,550 | 100.0 | 3,428,288 | 100.0 | 6.6 |
Source: Gartner Dataquest (May 2006)
HP
Hewlett-Packard's iPAQ shipments fell 29.9 percent in the first quarter. Gartner analysts said the long delay of the iPAQ 69xx series has hurt HP, especially with the iPAQ 65xx series still running Windows Mobile 2003.
Mio
Mio Technology has taken the lead in PDAs with integrated GPS capabilities and is faring especially well in Europe and Asia/Pacific. Mio Technology is on pace to sell more than 1 million such PDAs in 2006.
Dell
Dell Axim shipments declined 34 percent in the first quarter of 2006. The bulk of Dell's sales were its flagship model X51v with a 624 MHz processor and 256MB flash read-only memory (ROM).
OS Marketshare
Microsoft's Windows Mobile surpassed the 50 percent threshold for the first time in first quarter of 2006, with a share of 52.6 percent. RIM OS was second at 25.5 percent market share, followed by Palm OS at 13.4 percent, Symbian at 3.6 percent and Linux at 1.2 percent.
Gartner defines a PDA as a data-centric handheld computer weighing less than one pound that is primarily designed for use with both hands. These devices use an open market operating system supported by third-party applications that can be added into the device by end users. They offer instant on/off capability and synchronization of files with a PC. A PDA may offer WAN support for voice, but these are data-first, voice-second devices. Smartphones offer all the attributes of a PDA, except that smartphones are voice-centric and are designed for primarily a one-handed operation.
Additional information is available in the Gartner report "Dataquest Alert: Research In Motion Lifts PDA Market to 6.6 Percent Growth in 1Q06."
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RE: The RIM and Palm devices left out
RE: The RIM and Palm devices left out
Surur
They said I only argued for the sake of arguing, but after an hour I convinced them they were wrong...
RE: The RIM and Palm devices left out
Useless numbers
I've got 3 bananas, and you've got 5 chinese gooseberry's - therefore I win!! Go figure.
JLM.
RE: Useless numbers
Palm and PalmOS have lost their dominance from a market of 80% to 13-20% in 3 years!
The split of Palm and PalmSource and the bailiing our of Sony CLIE really killed Palm's share!
Moshe
RE: Useless numbers
Source: Gartner Dataquest (May 2006)'
In the Gartner mind what exactly is the difference between a 'smartphone' and a 'cellular PDA'? It's not hard to make an argument that iPAQ 6515 and Treo 700W are more closely related to each other than they are to the Blackberry 7100 or the Nokia E61.
RE: Useless numbers
Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics
As the above quotation points out, if you pose the "right" questions you can get the "right" answers to suit your position. It remains to be seen just who is posing the "questions" that Gartner is trying to "answer" with its data "manipulation".
"It is commonly said, and more particularly by Lord Shaftesbury, that ridicule is the best test of truth".
Lord Chesterfield
RE: Useless numbers
I don't plan to switch because the keyboard on my TG-50 is more important to me than vga, multitasking or the other things. but otherwise that axim X51v would look pretty good to me
RE: Useless numbers
everything it can to kill off palmOS
Ahem, the Palm OS as we know it is already dead - Access have killed off further development of Palm OS 5 and 6.
It's now a question of waiting to see what Phoenix OS will arise from the ashes of Palm OS. It might look like its ancestor, maybe even run the same applications. The thing is, will that Phoenix OS be ALP or something that's been brewing deep within Palm Inc?
RE: Useless numbers
Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their profits.
RE: Useless numbers
RE: Useless numbers
3 years is long time to:
(a) loose market share
(b) realize that
(c) do something to gain it back
The problem is that Palm is stuck with (a).
Whant an example of how they can do (c)? (at least my take..)
(a) Intake PalmSource - if they can't manage on their own - bring it back home - fire 80% of the people there, improve coblat and release it.
(b) Build the handheld super mother board - think of TX functionality (BT, WiFi, NVFS, HIRES+), Zire 72 camera module, GPS module and the TC/Treo keyboard support. Now you take this board and make 5 new models coming out each six month - delivering different form factors, different functionality, etc. Think about the following: TC2 - Wifi, BT, Kbd, TC2X - Wifi, BT, Kbd and camera, TC2XL - WiFi, BT, Kbd, camera and HVGA screen (sliding keyboard) etc. Build high-end devices made of metal, low end made of plastic.
(c) Support Skype (=finance part of the development!) to introudce skype support, support Opera to provide Opera browser. Make them available to be purchased at reduced price for new customers.
Start working on PalmOS over Linux - if a bunch of hackers made a unix distro run on 4-5 models in six months - a thousend developers can make the distro an OS in less than a year.
All of this does not require much of them - simply they need to do it.
Moshe
RE: Useless numbers
Intake PalmSource - if they can't manage on their own - bring it back home - fire 80% of the people there, improve coblat and release it.
It's a bit late for that now, seeing that Access owns PalmSource. Palm can always make an offer but Access will want extra on top of the $350million(?) it paid for PalmSource assuming Access want to sell in the first place. Besides are Garnet and Cobalt even worth that kind of money? Garnet is old and Palm didn't even want to use Cobalt on its devices; I doubt they will want to own Cobalt OS.
Suggesting Palm should buy PalmSource is like suggesting Russia should buy Alaska back from the USA. It may help them out but it's now well beyond reasonable possibility.
RE: Useless numbers
I like (b), but why a board? If you're gonna do it, just put it on silicon! The PalmChip.
Pat Horne; www.churchoflivingfaith.com
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The RIM and Palm devices left out
Treo sales are estimated at 581,000, comprising 460K 650s and 120K 700ws. This means their total sales were approximately 1,040,000 units, up 5%.
RIM sold about 512,000 7100 series Blackberries, bringing their total numbers up to 1.45 million.