Palm OS Leads the US Smartphone Market

Posted By: Ryan on Thursday, April 29, 2004 3:35:53 PM

Palm OS holds the leading share in the U.S. smartphone market, according to data released by the NPD Group, a retail sales tracking firm. According to NPD's report, U.S. market share for Palm Powered smartphones in February 2004 was more than double its nearest competitor.

NPD's data on the U.S. smartphone market gave Palm OS a 46% unit share, an increase of five points from January. Pocket PC Phone Edition held 22 percent, Microsoft Smartphone held 13 percent, Symbian held 11 percent, and Linux held eight percent.

Palm OS share was boosted in February by rising sales of the palmOne Treo 600, and continued strong sales of Palm Powered smart phones from Samsung and Kyocera. Palm Powered smartphones are also created by Group Sense PDA Limited of Hong Kong, but those products are not yet available in the US market.

The NPD Group tracks sales of smartphones - which it defines as phones with operating systems - through a combination of domestic retail sales reports and weekly surveys of approximately 35,000 U.S. consumers. In February, NPD's report showed that smartphones accounted for about 25 percent of Palm OS devices sold in the United States. (Note: NPD's list of smartphones does not include phones based on Symbian Series 60 software, but even if they were included, Palm OS would still have the leading share.)

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Wahooo!! Great but what about everywhere else?!

gfunkmagic @ 4/29/2004 7:45:23 AM #

It's good to see the PalmOS lead in the US market, but I doubt the same could be said elsewhere in Europe, Asia etc. In fact, Symbian truely rules the roost in Europe and I imagine PalmOS is merely a blip across the pond trailing both Symbian and M$...

IMO, PalmSource still needs to grab another major mobile handset OEM like Sony Ericsson, Sanyo etc if it wants to expand it's smartphone horizons. They need another big boy to go up against Nokia and Moto...

I support http://Tapland.com/

--------------------
GNM

RE: Wahooo!! Great but what about everywhere else?!

IanJD @ 4/29/2004 11:33:16 AM #

For the first quarter of 2004, "In the smartphone segment alone, Symbian commanded a 91.2 per cent share, followed by Microsoft on 7.8 per cent and PalmSource on just a single percentage point."

The Register, 20th April 2004.

http://www.theregister.com/2004/04/20/euro_q1_pda_sales/

RE: Wahooo!! Great but what about everywhere else?!

RyanP @ 4/29/2004 12:03:02 PM #

i think one has to define smartphone carefully here. There are a lot of symbian "smart phones" out there that are used as basic phones. Symbian, especially series 60, is thrown on a lot of mid-range phones which i would not call "smart phones."

That does not let palm off the hook entirely. They (palm) need to hit the mid end (< $250-300 BOM) of the phone market with garnett and do so quickly. Palm would be a joy on a mid range phone simply to avoid the horrible gui's and navigation of traditional proprietary phone OSs.

PS: A phone with stated BOM might sell in the $100 to $200 price range after subsidies.

RE: Wahooo!! Great but what about everywhere else?!

iJITSU @ 4/29/2004 4:19:23 PM #

I didn't consider Series 60 phones as true smartphones until I used one. The contacts program is better than the standard Palm OS (but about the same as PalmOne on T3), the calendar is fine, the video playback with Smartmovie is better than Kinoma (but not as good as MMPlayer), Splashphoto works great, there are ebook readers, PDF file readers, Word doc readers, 3rd party IM apps, email works great, full HTML web browsers, notes, games (java and Symbian) and the list goes on. On the hardware side, most have high res screens, somethign that can't be said for current Palm OS smartphones. I'm a big Palm OS fan, but I have to give credit to the Series 60 phones. They are true smartphones without question. They may not be "converged devices" as I don't think you can edit spreadsheets, etc on them currently, but both Palmsource and MS would do themselves a favor by focusing on meeting and surpassing the pleasant UI and capabilities of the Symbian OS. As for me, I am still waiting for a Palm OS smartphone with a high res screen, good battery life, and bluetooth.

RE: Wahooo!! Great but what about everywhere else?!

iJITSU @ 4/29/2004 4:28:55 PM #

And yes, It would be GREAT to see Palm Garnett on something like a Motorola V600. That would totally rock.

Sony Ericsson P900 + PalmOS + flip keyboard = ?

;-o @ 5/2/2004 4:30:11 AM #

Sony Ericsson P900 + PalmOS + flip keyboard = killer smartphone

This is the equation we've been waiting for. And with Sony Ericsson's first PalmOS smartphone weighing in at almost 1 oz less than the P900 it will be unbeatable this year.

Palm Software on sale