PDA sales surge in Q1 on GPS, e-mail, Gartner says
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(InfoWorld) - Even though major vendors have shifted their focus to expensive and profitable smartphones, shipments of PDAs jumped nearly 40 percent in the first quarter of 2007, according to a new survey. The result came from higher-than-expected customer demand for devices with GPS navigation and low-cost e-mail functions, according to a Gartner study released Tuesday. In recent quarters, hardware vendors like Research in Motion (RIM) and Palm have begun to move their product lines from PDAs to smartphones. That strategy took its toll in the first quarter with RIM shipping 0.2 percent fewer units than last year and Palm dropping out of the top five in market share. The vendors say that is exactly the result they wanted to see. In a quarterly earnings report in March, Palm said smartphone revenue rose from 28 percent in the third quarter of 2004 to 86 percent in the third fiscal quarter of 2007. Despite Palm's stance, other vendors still see an opportunity in PDAs. Mio Technology had a 162 percent rise in PDA shipments in the first quarter with particularly strong sales of its GPS-enabled car-navigation units in southern European countries, according to Gartner. Drivers there love GPS because they frequently cross borders on twisty roads marked in foreign tongues, said Gartner analyst Todd Kort. SamsungÂ followed a different path to PDA success, rising from 2,150 shipments last year to 451,000 units shipped in the first quarter of 2007 thanks to a strong marketing campaign for its BlackJack wireless e-mail device by Cingular Wireless. Mobile e-mail capability is attracting many companies and consumers to buy new handsets like the BlackJack and Motorola Q, Kort said. "The market is moving very strongly with wireless e-mail," Kort said. "That and GPS are the biggest drivers, compared to the old PDA stuff that drove the market five or six years ago, the contact lists and calendars that are available on almost any device now." Overall, the PDA market reached 5.1 million units shipped in the first quarter, up 39.7 percent over the same quarter last year, according to the Gartner study. RIM held onto its top position with 18.1 percent market share, topping Mio with 11.1 percent, Samsung with 8.8 percent, Sharp with 8.5 percent, and Nokia with 6.2 percent. As a measure of RIM's effort to shift its product line to smartphones, its lead of 7 percentage points was down sharply from 18.5 percentage points in the same quarter last year. Another effect of the decision by RIM and Palm to downplay the PDA market was to open the door for Microsoft to buttress its leading position in handset operating systems. Microsoft shipped 3.2 million units of Windows CE in the first quarter, a rise of 64.4 percent over the same time last year. Meanwhile, the RIM, Palm, and Linux OSes all lost share in that same year-over-year comparison, Gartner said. Windows CE led the PDA market with 62.1 percent market share, towering over the RIM OS at 18.1 percent, Palm OS at 6.1, Symbian at 5.6 percent, and Linux at 0.7 percent. Gartner defines a PDA as a data-first, voice-second device designed for use with both hands. That family does not include devices such as Palm's Treo 750 and the BlackBerry 8100 family, but does include cellular PDAs like the BlackBerry 8700. Nevertheless, despite Gartner's upbeat report on PDAs, other industry observers stress that handheld devices without any phone capabilities at all are losing the interest of users. IDC, for example, tracks what they call handheld devices, defined as pocket-sized computers that may have Internet access and text messaging, but do not support telephony. IDC sees evidence of a shift away from these types of PDAs, illustrated by Dell's decision to stop selling handheld devices entirely, according to IDC analyst Ramon Llamas. As consumer interest swings quickly from simple handsets to feature-rich smartphones, the first quarter of 2007 marked the 13th consecutive quarter of decline in shipments of PDAs with no telephone abilities, Llamas said.
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(InfoWorld) - PC vendors reported global shipment growth of 12.5 percent in the second quarter as every major vendor except Dell posted a double-digit percentage increase in unit shipments compared to the same period last year, according to a report released Wednesday by IDC. Dell shipped 4.9 percent fewer PCs during the quarter than it did in 2006 as the company continued to struggle with a corporate restructuring effort that has included deep job cuts, changes in executive leadership, and a new strategy of selling computers through retail channels instead of only online. In contrast, Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP) consolidated its position as the world's largest PC vendor with unit shipment growth of 36.5 percent. Overall, vendors sold 58.8 million PCs in the quarter, IDC said. A report released on the same day by Gartner showed similar results with Dell sliding 5.5 percent compared to HP's growth of 36.6 percent. Gartner reported that global PC shipments rose 11.7 percent to 61.1 million units. HP is seeing good results because of a multifaceted approach that allows the company to concentrate its sales efforts on new regions if sales slump in another sector, said David Daoud, manager of the personal computing and PC tracker programs at IDC. "They are not putting all their eggs in a single basket," he said. "That is the result for a company that has adopted a multifaceted approach. PC shipments were slightly better than expected in the U.S., but they have done even better outside the U.S. in emerging markets and western Europe. So they can manage multiple regions." Despite the contrast in trends, none of the top five vendors changed their worldwide rankings by market share. For the quarter, HP claimed the top spot with 19.3 percent of global PC sales volume, leading Dell with 16.1 percent, Lenovo with 8.3 percent, Acer with 7.2 percent and Toshiba with 4.1 percent, according to IDC. The Gartner study showed the same rankings. However, Acer could soon begin to climb the rankings, if its success continues. The company improved its PC shipment volume by 55.4 percent in the second quarter, pulling close behind Lenovo, which grew at 22.3 percent. "Acer is laser-focused on particular segments, especially SMB and channel resellers," Daoud said. "They are just plowing." In the U.S., Acer is only the sixth-biggest PC vendor but showed the fastest rise in shipments, improving by 163.8 percent over the second quarter of 2006. Overall, the U.S. market is lead by Dell with 28.4 percent market share by shipments, then HP with 23.6 percent, Gateway and Apple with 5.6 percent each, Toshiba with 5.3 percent, and Acer with 5.2 percent. IDC counts PC shipments including sales of desktops, notebooks, ultraportables, and x86 servers, but not handhelds. Overall, the global market achieved its 12.5 percent shipment growth in the quarter thanks to good activity in the Asia-Pacific region and to slightly better than expected activity in the U.S., Daoud said. That growth rate was higher than the first quarter, when shipments rose 10.9 percent over that period in the previous year, and higher than the second quarter of 2006, when shipments rose 9.7 percent year on year. For the future, consumers continue to buy notebooks instead of desktops as the cost premium between the two models has narrowed to its smallest differential yet. IDC forecast strong growth in the second half of 2007 but said that market competition will be more complex than just cutting prices. Instead, PC vendors will try to get customers' attention with system design, customer service, channel coverage, and market expansion.
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Worldwide shipments of personal digital assistants (PDAs) using Microsoft Corp.'s Windows CE operating system have surpassed those using PalmSource Inc.'s Palm OS for the first time, following a precipitous decline in Palm OS PDA shipments in the third quarter of 2004, according to research released Friday by industry analyst company Gartner Inc.
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U.S. chain store sales rose in the  first week of February, a report said on Tuesday.
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Microsoft Corp.'s new Windows Vista operating system spurred a 67 percent increase in personal-computer sales at U S retail stores in its first week on the market, according to research firm Current Analysis Inc.
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(InfoWorld) - Gartner Inc. analysts expect theÂ release of Windows Vista next year will have little effect on boosting PC sales. In a recent report on PC revenue, analysts for the research firm said they don't think Vista's release in early 2007 will do anything significant to affect the growth of PC sales, which they expect to be up 10.5 percent in 2006 over 2005. "While we think the [Vista] marketing campaign will attract people, we don't see enough there to attract a mass movement or a big growth spurt," said George Shiffler, a Gartner research director. "We don't think it will encourage enough people to replace [their PCs] right then and there." Moreover, he said PCs in general are not at the top of consumers' minds, particularly with the approaching Christmas holiday shopping season. Other consumer electronics may be a bigger lure, especially since Vista will fail to make its originally promised appearance on PCs before the holidays. "There are lots of things people can spend their money on," Shiffler said. "What are PCs going to have going for them? Vista's not going to be out." Microsoft originally promised to have Windows Vista on PCs by November, but in March pushed back its release to consumers until January 2007. Some analysts predict the OS will be out later than that, though online retailer Amazon.com Inc. has Jan. 30, 2007, as Vista's availability date in listings for presales of the OS. In lieu of Vista, Microsoft said Thursday it will have a new consumer electronics product on retail shelves in time for the holidays: its Zune digital music player. The product will allow users not only to play music, photos and videos on a three-inch screen, but also allow them to share files with friends via a wireless connection. This is unlike Apple Computer Inc.'s iPod, with which it is designed to compete. It also differs from the iPod by offering an FM radio tuner. In addition to the Zune player, Microsoft also will offer the Zune Marketplace, an iTunes-like service where users can purchase music tracks, and accessory packs for using the Zune player at home or in automobiles.ADVERTISEMENTMAKE SOA REAL WITH IBM WEBSPHERE PODCASTStreamline processes and maximize efficiency within a proven service oriented architecture. Take back control of your business processes with IBM WebSphere.
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Apple Inc's  iPhone outsold  all smartphones in the United States in July, its first full  month on sale, accounting for 1.8 percent of all U.S. mobile  handset sales, research group iSuppli said on Tuesday.
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Global sales of semiconductors  rose 1 percent in July as consumer uncertainty and swelling  inventories restrained the industry's pace of growth, the U.S.  Semiconductor Industry Association reported on Thursday.
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(InfoWorld) - Research in Motion held onto its spot as the world's largest PDA vendor thanks to swelling demand for wireless e-mail, according to a market report released Tuesday. RIM shipped more than 1.8 million BlackBerry handhelds in the fourth quarter, pushing its total 2006 PDA shipments up 10 percent over last year to 3.5 million, according to Gartner. Despite its success, RIM's shipments grew more slowly than the overall market rate of 18.4 percent and much more slowly than smaller competitors like Mio Technology, up 112.1 percent on sales of its global positioning system-enabled devices, and Sharp, up 166.2 percent on sales of its Sidekick. The biggest losers in the industry were Palm, whose PDA shipments dropped 29 percent, and Hewlett-Packard, which dropped 24.1 percent. RIM still dominates the industry with 19.8 percent market share, but the other four vendors are now locked in a tight race, all claiming shipments between 1.4 million and 1.9 million units. Palm ranks second with 11.1 percent share, followed by HP with 9.7 percent, Mio with 8.5 percent, and Sharp with 8 percent. One reason for the shift is that RIM has been migrating its product mix from PDAs to smartphones, lead by the success of its BlackBerry Pearl, Gartner analyst Todd Kort said in the report. That trend applies to the entire market, too, as PDA vendors included cellular connectivity in 60 percent of their products in 2006, up from 47 percent in 2005. Gartner defines a PDA as a data-centric device that may offer voice communication but focuses on features like instant on/off and synchronizing files with a PC. The segment includes cellular PDAs, such as RIM's BlackBerry 87xx, but excludes smartphones, such as the BlackBerry 81xx and Palm's Treo 750. Inside those PDAs, Microsoft's Windows CE was both the most popular OS and the fastest growing. Designers used Windows CE in 56.1 percent of all PDAs in 2006, an increase of 38.8 percent from 2005. RIM's OS held a distant second place with 19.8 percent of the market, while the Palm OS lost nearly one-third of its platforms and held onto just 11.7 percent share. At the bottom of the market, fourth-place Symbian slumped to 5.4 percent share, and Linux rose to 0.9 percent.
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Sales of server systems rose 7.7 percent globally in the second quarter to $11.55 billion as demand for Information Technology remained strong after a three year downturn, market research firm Gartner said in a statement.
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Worldwide mobile handset sales topped 167 million units, with almost all regions posting growth, according to the latest numbers coming out of Gartner.
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Oracle Corp. kicked off its new fiscal year with its biggest increase in software sales since the dot-com boom, propelling a first-quarter performance that topped analysts' expectations.
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Both IDC and Gartner reported worldwide shipments of PCs were up strongly in the second quarter, thanks to surge in demand in the Far East and surprisingly brisk sales in the US.
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BERLIN Fujitsu Siemens Computers, the No.3 seller of PCs in Europe, said Wednesday that revenue and profit surged in the six months through September as sales to small businesses increased amid a revival in corporate technology spending.
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For the first time, sales top $1 billion in one quarter, researcher says.
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(InfoWorld) - Palm Inc. began taking orders for its Treo 680 smartphone on Wednesday, hoping to expand from its core business customers to a larger market of casual, first-time users. Palm is charging US$399 for the "unlocked" version of the phone, allowing users to subscribe to any carrier, and plans to begin shipping the phones shortly after Dec. 1. One carrier has already announced a plan for the phone -- Cingular Wireless LLC will begin selling the Treo 680 for $199 on Friday. Palm hopes to attract a new demographic by designing the Treo 680 with an internal antenna, making it slimmer than previous models, and offering it in four colors, according to a statement by John Hartnett, Palm's senior vice president of global markets. In another bid for those casual customers, Palm has moved beyond purely business functions, and will offer entertainment applications like the ability to show Flash-based movies such as those seen on the YouTube Web site, and to play MP3 songs through a 30-day trial of Yahoo Inc.'s mobile, digital music service. New users might also appreciate the Google Maps function, which offers personalized driving directions or addresses for nearby restaurants. "Location-based services hold great promise in a wide variety of areas, such as helping friends find each other, helping advertisers more effectively target prospects, and even ensuring that no man ever has to stop for directions again," said Avi Greengart, principal analyst for mobile devices with Current Analysis. As a phone, the Palm OS-based device operates on the GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications), GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) and EDGE (Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution) networks. Palm hopes the Treo 680 will help it to grow beyond its roots in the slow-growing PDA (personal digital assistant) market, and claim a greater share of the burgeoning smartphone industry. Smartphone shipments worldwide grew 75.5 percent to 34.7 million units in the first half of 2006, according to research firm Gartner Inc. In comparison, PDA sales grew only 5.7 percent to 7.4 million units. North America is the only region where PDAs continue to outsell smartphones, so Palm hopes its new product has arrived in U.S. markets in time to catch a wave of people upgrading to the new technology. With only 5 percent of the worldwide market for combined PDA and smartphone markets, Palm needs the Treo 680 to be a financial success in order to compete with its larger rivals. Nokia Corp. is the largest vendor, with 42 percent market share, followed by Research in Motion Ltd. with 6.5 percent and Motorola Inc. with 5.3 percent, according to Gartner. Posting strong sales through the holiday season will be crucial for that plan, as Gartner predicts smartphones sales will continue to rise, totaling 81 million for the full year of 2006. That growth will be fueled by a jump in consumer demand, focused on individual details like fashion and multimedia, according to a statement by Gartner analyst Roberta Cozza. Â
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Worldwide mobile phone sales exceeded 156.4 million units in the second quarter of 2004, a 35 percent increase over the second quarter of 2003, according to a report released this week by Gartner Inc.