Chicago (IL) - Traditional PDAs without phone integration are driven more and more into a market niche. According to IDC, shipments declined more than 18% year, over year; unit numbers for the year were down almost 17%. The segment begins to become insignificant for large manufacturers - and a playground for smaller vendors instead.
PDA manufacturers had a mixed fourth quarter. While shipments grew 37.6% over Q3 and peaked at 2.2 million units for the year, they weren't able to save the accelerating pace of declining sales. Compared to 2004, 2005 shipments plunged 16.7% or 1.6 million units from 9.1 million to 7.5 million units. While 7.5 million may still seem a lot, the smartphone and converged devices market has picked up many of the original PDA users and keeps attracting new customers. According to IDC, shipments of converged devices - smartphones and PDAs with PDA functionality - climbed 165% in 2005 and topped 55 million units.
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TG Daily
Feb 3, 2006, 05:16 PM
