Handhelds Look Strong in Early Holiday Shopping

The latest weekly figures from NPD Intellect show that unit sales of handhelds are up 20% from the previous week's and up more than 30% from the same week last year. This a sign that the whole sector may be looking at a good holiday shopping season, which it very much needs.

Though some might point out that a single week's change doesn't make a trend, the news was enough to drive up shares of both Palm and Handspring over the last couple of trading sessions.

Palm's unit sales were up 30% compared to the previous week's, Handspring's were up 7%, and Sony's were up 4.5%.

Also, Prudential securities issued a report that shows that the rampant price cutting of handheld models has slowed almost to a stop. The report said the average change in the lowest available price of 27 different handheld models dropped only 2%, a small change compared to those over the past few months.

As demand for handhelds has slowed, retailers and manufacturers have been engaged in a price war, which has cut profits to the bone and has hurt all the companies involved. Together, these two reports show that demand for handhelds seems to be picking up and that prices have stopped dropping.

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