Wireless E-Mail Drives PDA Sales

Worldwide shipments of PDA devices increased 25 percent in the first quarter of 2005 compared to the same period last year. This is according to a report by Gartner Dataquest, which attributes the hike in numbers to an increase in models offering wireless e-mail.

PDAs using the Microsoft Windows Mobile operating system gained the top overall spot, though the total includes units from multiple hardware manufacturers including Hewlett-Packard and Dell. BlackBerry manufacturer RIM is up 75.6 percent, shipping over 711,000 units this past quarter, compared to 405,000 units at the beginning of last year. PalmOne lost the most market share, as shipments fell to 614,750 units from 834,591 shipped in the first quarter of 2004.

”The Microsoft platform is growing about as rapidly as the PalmOne platform is declining,” Todd Kort, principal analyst at Gartner Dataquest told ClickZ Stats. ”PalmOne has been going down about 20 percent per year, and Microsoft has been gaining about that much every year.”

Worldwide, shipments are increasing as manufacturers expand their market reach. RIM BlackBerry had been an American phenomenon, though it’s starting to pick up in Europe.

”The European market has been going very strongly for over a year now, and we are constantly upgrading our forecasts,” comments Kort.

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