PDA sales surge in Europe
Mobile device shipments soar 225 per cent
Europe is leading the way in PDA and mobile device shipments, according to analysts.
The latest figures from IDC showed that the market for mobile devices in Europe had grown by a whopping 225 per cent over the previous year.
This was reinforced by UK research firm Canalys, which found that sales of PDAs in EMEA had risen by more than half in the second quarter of 2003.
Andy Buss, analyst at Canalys, said: "It has been one of the best quarters of the past few years. The European market has been driven by some good performances by Palm in the data area, and Germany has seen some major growth."
However, IDC also reported that worldwide sales of hand-helds were down by more than 10 per cent year on year during Q2 2003. Shipments had also fallen in Q1 this year.
Ross Sealfon, research analyst in IDC's smart hand-held device programme, said: "With worldwide economic uncertainty and an increasingly crowded market, hand-held device vendors will have a difficult time building and maintaining market share."
But Andy Dow, commercial director for distributor Westcoast, claimed he is still seeing increasing sales. "PDAs are one of the fastest growing markets there is for us," he said.
"It still has plenty of room to grow. I have a range of navigation accessories that are flying off the shelves, and so are wireless and Bluetooth units.
"That tells me that people are building solutions around these products for business use."
The analysts had differing views on vendor market share. IDC claimed Palm had retained its top spot in the PDA league table, with Hewlett-Packard (HP) second, followed by Sony, and then Dell in fourth place.
Canalys claimed Nokia was leading the group, with almost 50 per cent of the market. Palm came second with 12 per cent share, followed by Sony Ericsson with 10 per cent and HP with nine per cent.