PDA Shipments Continue to Decline

Market analysis firm IDC reports PDA shipments dropped for the 15th consecutive quarter to just 729,000 units...but the market shouldn't be counted out just yet.

Market analysis firm IDC has released its sales figures for the handheld device and PDA market or the third quarter of 2007, and the results aren’t pretty. Although the industry managed to ship 728,894 devices during the quarter—and that represents about 1.5 percent more than the previous quarter—the number represents a decline of 39.3 percent compared to the same quarter last year. Overall, the PDA market has posted year-on-year shipment declines for 15 consecutive quarters as vendors end product lines or get out of the business entirely.

Of course, the pressure on the PDA market comes mainly from smartphones and mobile devices: as phones get more capable and their communication features more robust, fewer people are looking for the "office in a pocket" capability of PDAs. However, IDC, says the market shouldn’t be written off just yet: "The handheld still has a loyal, if shrinking, following in developed economies, especially among enterprise users," said IDC analyst Ramon T. Llamas, in a statement. "In emerging markets, the appeal of the handheld devices seems anchored in the fact that, in the absence of a monthly service plan, it has a lower total cost of ownership compared to mobile phones and/or the converged mobile device."

The top handheld device makers remain Palm, HP, Mio, Fujitsu-Siemens, and Sharp, with Palm still capturing the bulk of the market with 325,000 units shipped in the third quarter of 2007…but that still represents a year-on-year decline of almost 28 percent, and Palm hasn’t released a new PDA in over two years. HP saw the least year-on-year decline—17.5 percent, shipping 198,100 units—while Sharp experienced an 82.7 percent drop in unit shipments, down to 17,500, all of which were sold in Japan.