Smartphones sales lead market

By Matt Whipp

Posted on 27 Jul 2005 at 17:44

Smartphones continue in their ascendency, claims analysts Canalys in their quarterly report for the sector.

Figures for the second quarter of this year saw shipments more than double, with Palm making a smooth transition from handheld to smartphone maker.

Prospects continue to blacken for the PDA sector, which was down 14 per cent. Palm remains at the helm of the market, but its handhelds dropped nearly a third year on year, taking its total shipments down by one per cent as well. HP, at number two, saw a 21 per cent drop.

The good news as ever rests in smartphones. Nokia put in impressive figures, enlarging its share to 55 per cent of the market, trebling its shipments year on year. Motorola too came out of nowhere, shipping six times the number of smartphones it managed for the corresponding quarter of 2004 and landing it with a 4.6 per cent market share and fourth place behind RIM, which looks set to reach the milestone of a million shipments a quarter.

As a result of Nokia's performance, Symbian tops the list for operating systems with 62.8 per cent, at the expense of Microsoft and PalmSource with 15.9 and 9.5 respectively.