Users get smart over mobile devices

The handheld device market has grown to 42 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2005, according to IDC.

The increasing prominence of low-cost retail channels such as Kmart and Target stocking these products was a contributing growth in the fourth quarter.

The report found total handheld shipments in Q4, 2005 increasing to 36 percent from the previous quarter.

Pen-based and converged device categories contributed to the strong growth in the fourth quarter of 2005, with 44 percent and 36 percent sequential growth rates respectively.

Converged devices gave up some share to the pen-based devices this quarter, however only by a 0.4 percent share from the preceding quarter.

IDC also found increased consumer spending drove growth in pen-based devices and the surge in consumer spending over the Christmas period rejuvenated the generally ailing pen-based segment.

Lower end models became the obvious alternative to traditional filo faxes.

Converged devices grew 127 percent year-on-year, the report said.

The strong performance of the converged device market in the fourth quarter, contributed to an overall vigorous growth in 2005.

IDC said the high expectations for this market segment driven by an increase in commercial deployments as organisations seek to mobilise their workforce.

In 2005, the proliferation of devices equipped with hard disk drives, as well as improved imaging specifications, grew.

IDC predicted that this would continue in 2006 as enterprise mobile application demand grew in complexity and moved beyond personal information management and email.

IDC market analyst for PC hardware, Mercie Clement, said Nokia led the total market with a 77.5 percent share based on unit shipments.

Research in Motion (RIM) finished the quarter in second place with 5.6 percent share while HP attained the third spot with 4.9 percent share.

Meanwhile, Carrier Devices and Palm achieved the fourth and fifth spots respectively with 4.6 percent and 1.8 percent share. HP took only one percent of the market, while and others accounted for 1.9 percent.

The top five vendors in the total pen-based device market includes HP with 48.0 percent share and Palm with 39.9 percent.

Dell had only 4.6 percent, while Navman with 3.2 percent and Acer picked up 3.0 percent. Others rounded off the list with a 1.3 per cent share.