Sales of smart mobile devices are increasing dramatically as remote working becomes increasingly popular, reports analyst group Canalys.
The sales of traditional PDAs continue to plummet as users increasingly demand more sophisticated applications from handheld devices. This is reflected in the increasing popularity of smartphones and handhelds with wireless connectivity. According to Canalys, sales of these ‘converged’ devices are up 55% in the second quarter of 2006 compared to the same three months during 2005.
Nokia continues to retain its overwhelming lead, accounting for 47.7% of the overall market, with Motorola coming in second at 8.4%. Research in Motion (RIM), maker of the popular BlackBerry device has 6.2% of the overall market share.
Nokia’s sales have been driven by accelerating demand for its Symbian-based smartphones, with sales of over 9 million such units during Q2 2006, over 95% of which were of the S60 model, Canalys estimates. This, Canalys says, is representative of Nokia’s bid to shift from consumer-oriented, keypad-centric designs to enterprise-focused models such as the keyboard-based E61.
Another vendor making a significant impact on the market in the last quarter was Motorola, which laid claim to the second largest share and is the second-fastest growing vendor after Nokia. Competition is fierce, though, with RIM and Palm regularly shipping more than 1 million devices per quarter each.
