Smartphones threaten to weaken PDA sales
Hand-held market is mushrooming, but smartphones could halt PDA growth, analyst warns
PDA sales reached their highest ever level last year but are set to flatten this year as smartphones rise in popularity, analyst firm Gartner has claimed.
Worldwide PDA shipments hit a record 14.9 million units in 2005, a 19 per cent increase from 2004, according to Gartner’s latest figures. The previous record was in 2001 when 13.2m PDAs were shipped globally.
Research In Motion (RIM) became the number one PDA vendor with worldwide shipments of 3.19 million during 2005 and a 21.4 per cent market share. Palm followed closely behind with 2.77 million units shipped and Hewlett-Packard (HP) was third with 2.26 million.
Gartner defines a PDA as a data-centric hand-held computer weighing less than one pound primarily designed for use with both hands, so the results did not include smartphones.
Todd Kort, principal analyst at Gartner’s Computing Platforms Worldwide group, told CRN: “Although last year was a record year for PDAs I’m expecting things to flatten out this year as smartphones are getting more popular. RIM’s biggest sales are now coming from its smartphones. Although PDA shipments hit 14.9 million units last year, sales of smartphones were around three times more.”
Kort claimed that the US is probably the only country where PDAs still outsell smartphones as “Americans still want a more data-centric device”.
Gary Duke, sales director at VAR LAN2LAN, said: “Most businesses want to reduce the cost of running laptops, so PDAs are a great alternative. A laptop can cost a business about £1,000 a year per user, whereas a PDA can cost between £500 and £800.”
Mark Needham, managing director of distributor Widget UK, added: “PDAs with Global Positioning Systems are selling well and this will continue this year. All sorts of different manufacturers are popping up with PDAs with navigation on them now.”