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    Sales of Handhelds Worldwide SlipPosted By: Ed on Monday, August 06, 2001 10:10:52 AM
There were 2.8 million PDAs of all types shipped worldwide during the second quarter of this year, which is down 21% from the previous quarter, according to a survey by Gartner Dataquest. Palm continued to hold the lead in both the United States and the entire world. Shipments of Palm handhelds made of 32% of the worldwide market. However, there was a significant drop from the previous quarter, down from 50%. Compaq was number two with 16%, rising from 8%. Handspring dropped to 11% from 16%. H-P was next with a 7.5% share, up from 4%. Research in Motion was fifth with a 4.1% share, down from 4.6% in the first quarter. It was a slightly different story in the United States. Palm has 40% of the U.S. market, while Handspring had 17%. Compaq was third with a 16% share. Next was HP at 8.4% and RIM rounded out the top five with 8.2%. The U.S. market accounts for about half the PDAs sold in the world. These numbers are for shipments from manufacturers to dealers rather than handhelds sold to businesses or consumers. Because Palm started the quarter with a lot of excess inventory, the company didn't ship as many units as competitors. Therefore, these numbers might not necessarily reflect actual sales. This was also the time after the m500 series had been announced and before it was shipping in quantity. Compaq's numbers were higher worldwide than in the U.S. because they have taken a strong foothold in Europe. Sony was still absent from the list as the N710C only began shipping at the beginning of June. The retail sales numbers for the month of June are significantly different. Handhelds running the Palm OS were 84.5% of the U.S. retail market, down about a percentage point from the previous month, according to NPD Intelect. The total of the Pocket PC and Windows CE share was only 8.8%, dropping from 9.5% the previous month. Recently, many have begun to suggest that Gartner has a pro-Microsoft slant. Please keep this in mind when reading this article. -Ed Related Articles: More Stories Like This...  Treo Disappoints in Warranty Reliability Report Specific Verizon Centro 1.03 ROM Update Details Named Apple Nearly Bought Palm in 1997 Programmer Planning Replacement DGOS Operating System Aceeca Meazura Handheld ROM Update iPhone Outsells the BlackBerry Last Quarter More articles about General News
Article Comments
9 total comments The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. PIC is not responsible for them in any way. login or register for free in order to post comments.  RE: Begun to suggest?I.M. Anonymous @ 8/6/2001 6:58:13 PM #
Gartner's chief handheld and gizmo guy is a complete Microsoft zealot. I met him once at a conference and I couldn't believe that someone from a supposedly "impartial" company could be so biased. He was carrying around his dorky iPaq and spouting it's merits to all and sundry. Ever since then I have had zero respect for anything Gartner have to say about hanhelds.
 Ed..I.M. Anonymous @ 8/6/2001 11:43:18 AM #
..is that really you posting on PalmStation? I mean, it really looks like they plagiarised your story on PDAlive, but is that your comment on PS? RE: Ed..
Yes. That article was plagiarized by PDAlive. There is a discussion thread about it here: www.palminfocenter.com/view_Story.asp?ID=2189&MODE=FLAT I've asked Hal to take it off or change the link but I haven't had any response yet. RE: Ed..I.M. Anonymous @ 8/6/2001 12:19:20 PM #
Not only that, there is now another article there that looks very very similar to this particular article. It was also posted by that same guy. http://www.pdalive.com/article.php?sid=40&mode=thread&order=0
Palm Had the Seven Top Sellers
Here's a quote from Cnet:
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-202-6792981.html --- News Editor Palm Infocenter
No credibility
I only skipped through this report to get to the interesting comments below, as virtually every poster here has more credibility than the Gartner group reports, even trolls. Excuse me for not being polite, but what company would survey customers who have not even had a chance to get comfortable with their devices, then create a report that says most Palm owners don't use 3rd party software? Some companies slant reports to the extreme, some take the information manipulation so far that it borders on dishonesty.
Take a look at their past practice: If the Microsoft glass is at half, they will say that it's almost to the top (if you put it in a long stem wine glass and measure the height of the glass), then they will add a cube of ice and a little umbrella, and declare they are taking over the world. If the Palm OS glass is at half, they will report that it's almost empty, the glass is dirty, and then spit in it.
Compaq, H-P Have Inventory GlutI Have No Name @ 8/6/2001 11:57:26 PM #
A Pacific Press Securities research analyst, in comments on these numbers, said, "While Palm has significantly reduced the amount of channel inventory that's out there, Compaq has significantly increased theirs." He went on to say, "Compaq and HP and starting to struggle with inventory issues of their own." RE: Compaq, H-P Have Inventory Glut
Although Palm has had their financial problems, I bet the PPC camp players are having twice the financial problems for their PDA businesses. The only difference is HP, Compaq and M$ don't have to disclose their revenues and profits for their PDA business, while Palm and Handspring do (because it's their only business).
Palm can only afford a couple mis-steps (like too much inventory, etc.), while M$ can dump gazillions of dollars into PPC and hardly blink. Look at Netscape. M$ GAVE their browser away for free. How could Netscape compete with that???
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>a pro-Microsoft slant. Please keep this in mind when >reading this article. -Ed
Recently? Gartner has been banging Microsoft's gong for years. They've been shoving distorted Windows vs. Mac statistics for a long time, as one example. Why should it be any different on the handheld side?