TELECOMS & MOBILE
Smartphone and PDA sales go skyward
31-01-2005
by
Sales of smartphones and PDAs soared at the end of 2004, driven by lower prices, pent-up demand for long-awaited models, and wider use among businesses.
New figures published on Monday by analyst firm Canalys reveal that overall global shipments of these mobile devices rose 51 percent in the fourth quarter of 2004, compared to the same period the year before. Nokia was the star performer, shipping almost 5 million smartphones during the quarter and boosting its market share again. One driver for Nokia was the release of its new Communicator model, for which the market had been waiting for almost a year; the new Series 80 Nokia 9500 is the first smartphone to ship with integrated Wi-Fi, Canalys said.
The analyst noted that the Finnish company dominates the market largely because it maintains the largest portfolio of smart devices at various price points, rather than releasing a single model at a time and allowing its older models to lapse, as its rivals do.
"Nokia is the only one that has been able to build a family of smartphones -- it has the segmentation and product differentiation to appeal to business and consumers alike," said Chris Jones, senior analyst for Canalys, speaking to ElectricNews.net. "That is what other vendors need to learn from Nokia."
Jones admitted that in the past, other vendors may not have committed themselves to maintaining a wide product range because they lack Nokia's deep pockets. But he said the time may be right now for vendors to take the risk and invest in a wider product set.
"If vendors want to be serious in this market, that is what they'll have to do," Jones said. "The rewards are there to be had -- the business market is ready to take off, and this year could be the year to put more investment in this area and reap the rewards."
Also notable during the quarter were the strong growth rates for RIM, the maker of the Blackberry, which saw shipments rise 249 percent at the end of 2004 compared to the previous year. Jones said RIM did particularly well over the past year because of its success in striking deals with more operators, and its ability to cut prices.
RIM's Blackberry was a chief pioneer of "push" e-mail, a service that Canalys says is a killer application in terms of enterprise use of smartphones. Businesses want the push service because it proactively retrieves e-mail from the corporate server, making it easier for mobile workers to stay in touch. Canalys says an increasing number of enterprises are buying smartphones and PDAs, and are looking for devices which can give access to applications like customer relationship management (CRM) packages or fleet management tools.
During the fourth quarter, Fujitsu also saw sales rise more than 200 percent year-on-year, but Jones said the company is selling its smartphone -- a 3G FOMA model -- in Japan only.
RIM came in at fourth place in the Canalys figures, with 7.6 percent of market share during the fourth quarter of 2004, or 826,940 unit shipments. The other spots in the rankings were held by Nokia with around 45 percent market share; PalmOne with 13.8 percent share; HP with 8 percent share; and Motorola with 4.1 percent share. Other vendors saw sales of around 21 percent combined.
Jones added that, following the wider deployment of smartphones and PDAs -- especially among businesses -- more stories about mobile viruses are likely to hit the headlines this year. The top target is expected to be Symbian's mobile operating system, due to its large installed base, but Jones said Symbian is "well aware of the situation" and is taking steps now to beef up the system's security.
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