Handheld Sales Figures for February Released

Posted By: Ed Monday, March 19, 2001 5:54:59 PM

For the benefit of those who follow the competition between the handheld makers like sports fans follow the NCAA basketball tournment, PCData has released the retail sales figures for the handheld market for February. Palm still holds a commanding lead with 59% of the market but it dropped two points since January. Handspring was the company that grabbed them, moving to 28% of the market from 26%. Sony has 2%. That means devices running the Palm OS made up 89% of the handhelds sold at retail stores. HandEra doesn't appear on this list because the TRGpro is only available via the Web.

The PocketPC manufacturers didn't gain any ground during the month, holding steady at 9%. H-P had 4%; Compaq had 3%; and Casio had 2%.

The remaining 2% was held by all other handheld manufacturers.

It will be interesting to see how these figures look in a month or two, considering that all of the Palm OS companies and most of the PocketPC ones have either just released a new device or are about to.

Palm's Share of PDA Market Down in January

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Get your facts straight...

I.M. Anonymous @ 3/19/2001 7:12:51 PM #

It irks me to no end to see sites like this endlessly quoting monthly sales statistics as "market share". THEY ARE NOT THE SAME THING! The term "market share" implies a vendors complete share of an entire market, meaning installed base. This does *not* equate to new sales for any given month. In epidemiologic terms, this is akin to confusing "prevalence" (e.g., market share) with "incidence" (e.g., monthly sales). The incidence (or monthly sales) *may* be a useful indicator, but fluctuations in monthly sales don't necessarily imply an immediate effect on market share.

The bottom line is that the Palm OS is still kicking Pocket PC's virtual ass. ;-)

RE: YOU get YOUR facts straight...

I.M. Anonymous @ 3/19/2001 8:02:24 PM #

It is you who needs to check your facts. "Market Share" has no implication of time at all, a time period must be specified. It certainly does not imply the entire life span of the Market in question

The article clearly states that the time period is the month of February. Therefore, these figures tell us what the market share is for each of the companies in the Market during that month.

"Market Share" and "Installed Base" are not synonymous.

Prof. Bob

RE: Get your facts straight...

I.M. Anonymous @ 3/19/2001 8:03:48 PM #

So I guess when I dropped my Palm III and the screen got cracked that's "mortality". And the ratio of cracks to drops is "lethality".

RE: Get your facts straight...

I.M. Anonymous @ 3/20/2001 1:16:05 AM #

I'm a little confused about the argument (or civil discussion) and I have no conclusion per se, but I think we are all in agreement that PalmOS is outselling "PocketPC" or "WinCE".

RE: Get your facts straight...

I.M. Anonymous @ 3/20/2001 9:35:18 AM #

Since the context of the article was February, I read "market" as only for the month of February. Since this talked about sales, I was able to deduce that it was "sales in the month of February". Don't post if your confused.

(BTW, Pocket PC seems to have a tiny (9%) hold on the home market for the month, but what would be interesting is to dig into enterprise purchases, and to include Blackberry's in the standings as well. My killer PDA for the enterprise would be a Palm w/ multitasking, good color resolution, and always-on connectivity. The m505 gives me good enough color (the Clie really gives me what I want), the rumored m700 series gives me the connectivity. If they do a "m705" then I'm 2/3rds of the way there.)

RE: Get your facts straight...

I.M. Anonymous @ 3/20/2001 5:50:37 PM #

Looks like "Prof. Bob" needs to go back to business school.

What Does This Mean?

I.M. Anonymous @ 3/19/2001 10:10:22 PM #

Is it based on number of units sold or amount of $ paid?

RE: What Does This Mean?

Ed @ 3/20/2001 9:13:55 AM #

These ranking are in terms of revenue, not by units sold.

---
Plenipotentiary
Palm Infocenter

RE: What Does This Mean?

Deslock @ 3/20/2001 11:28:52 AM #

Is that why there has been some apparently conradictary information floating out there in the past... one source might say that PPCs have a share of 9% and another source says 3%.

Since Most Palms sold are $150-$200 and most PPCs sold are ~ $500, it could be that PPC has 9% of revenues generated, but only ~ 3% of the units sold. Is that the case for February?

wait.....this is only for non mail order sales?

I.M. Anonymous @ 3/20/2001 12:44:27 AM #

It seems to me that a huge percentage of PDA sales are through mail order (it's how I bought mine). If this is only giving sales info about non-mail order sales it sounds kind of worthless.

False!

GrouchoMarx @ 3/20/2001 4:29:20 AM #

The TRGpro is available in certain retail outlets. Not a great many, and not in huge numbers, but a Sams Club is not a web site. I really wish people would stop saying that the TRGpro isn't available "mass market" or "in retail outlets", as the first is a flat lie, and the second hasn't been true for months.

--GrouchoMarx

do you know anything about new TRGPro handheld???

I.M. Anonymous @ 3/20/2001 6:52:56 AM #

If so, please post it!

pocket pc sucks wind

I.M. Anonymous @ 3/20/2001 9:18:05 AM #

ooh, 9%. Can't you feel the big mo?

Market Share

I.M. Anonymous @ 3/20/2001 4:52:02 PM #

I just wanted to point out the source of the handheld marketshare data. Although PCData is widely considered the primary source for marketshare data, they only take into account "retail" sales and the last time I checked they don't count Wal-Mart, SAM's or Circuit City among others. Hmmm... Wal-Mart sells the Handspring, SAM's sells TRG and I believe that Circuit City is the leading retailer of Palm Inc. handhelds. I think everyone can safely agree that Palm OS devices are leading MS CE devices by a WIDE margin, but everytime I see this kind of data, I have to laugh. Look at the source and what criteria they use in compiling their data. You can come up with a statistic or a study to support either side of almost any argument.