Following a holiday quarter in which worldwide shipments of handheld devices topped 2 mln units, the worldwide market for handheld devices began 2006 with its 9th consecutive quarter of YTY decline. According to IDC, worldwide shipments of handheld devices totaled 1.5 mln units, down 22.3% from Q1 2005. Despite the incorporation of features like Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, expandable memory, and integrated GPS solutions, the handheld market continues to shrink. Many of these same features can be found on mobile phones, and the inclusion of telephony extends the usability of mobile phones beyond that of handheld devices. Still, vendors continue to search for ways to keep their products viable within this space by appealing to first-time and core users, or even joining the converged mobile device (i.e. smartphone) space altogether.
| Global handheld market in Q1 2006 | |||||
| Q1 2006 | Q1 2005 | Growth | |||
| Vendor | Shipments | Share | Shipments | Market Share | YTY |
| Palm | 475,000 | 32.2% | 619,253 | 32.6% | -23.3% |
| HP | 346,000 | 23.5% | 496,755 | 26.2% | -30.3% |
| Dell | 143,100 | 9.7% | 216,229 | 11.4% | -33.8% |
| Acer | 110,688 | 7.5% | 124,084 | 6.5% | -10.8% |
| Mio | 104,609 | 7.1% | 56,720 | 3.0% | 84.4% |
| Others | 294,849 | 20.0% | 385,482 | 20.3% | -23.5% |
| Total | 1,474,246 | 100.0% | 1,898,523 | 100.0% | -22.3% |
| Source: IDC | |||||