According to Gartner, 3.4 million PDAs were shipped during Q1 of 2005, an increase of 25 percent over Q1 of 2004, representing "the strongest first quarter the industry has experienced."
Gartner says that Windows CE increased its share of the PDA operating system market to 46 percent, up from 40.2 percent last year when it was
virtually tied with Palm OS for first place. Additionally, Research In Motion (RIM) edged out Palm for second place with 20.8 percent of the market compared to Palm's 20 percent.
"We expect that palmOne will be adding other operating systems and setting more of its own direction, while PalmSource (supplier of the Palm OS) is redirecting itself toward Linux and smartphones," said Todd Kort, principal analyst in Gartner's Computing Platforms Worldwide group. Symbian and Linux rounded out the top five with 9.9 percent and a negligible 0.8 percent respectively.
PDA average selling price (ASP) for the quarter reached $406, an increase of 15 percent over the first quarter of 2004, and the highest value since Gartner began tracking ASP in 2000, the research firm reports. Gartner attributes the increase to the increased popularity of high-end wireless models.
"PDAs with integrated wireless local area network (LAN) or cellular capabilities accounted for approximately 55 percent of all PDAs shipped in the first quarter of 2005," noted Kort. "This increase is primarily the result of the growing popularity of wireless e-mail, with users favoring larger displays and QWERTY keyboards that are operated with both hands."
Further information on the Gartner report, titled "PDA Market Has Record First Quarter, Growing 25 Percent," is available
here.
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