Click to View

Canalys, a market research company, reported this week that in the EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Asia) market, mobile device sales, including smartphones and handhelds grew considerably, 62%, during the first quarter of this year over the same period the year before.

Nokia remained overall market leader, but its share fell slightly sequentially. Hewlett-Packard occupied second place overall, with impressive year-on-year growth of 56%, making this the third consecutive quarter where it out-shipped palmOne, which remained in third place. In terms of just Europe, however, IDC has reported that palmOne shipped more units than HP, 216,000 to 196,000.

Handhelds

According to Canalys, with year-on-year growth of 33%, the data-centric handheld segment remained healthy this quarter. A continued good mix of individual and enterprise business meant that HP remained ahead of palmOne, whose shipments were almost flat compared to the same quarter one year ago. RIM’s continual improvement in EMEA over the past 18 months saw it appear in the top three for the first time, with the BlackBerry taking 8% share of the data-centric mobile device segment.

RIM's strong security message has helped it leapfrog other handheld vendors, like Toshiba and Dell, who, despite having a significant enterprise client base and track record in mobile products, such as notebooks, have so far failed to differentiate themselves and make an impact in the corporate mobile device solution space.

“RIM has made great progress in EMEA over the past year and a half,” said Chris Jones, Canalys director and senior analyst. “Lower unit prices, the move to color displays and voice integration all helped put it in a position where it was ready to take advantage of the return of corporate spending when it came. The increasing awareness among business buyers of the need for security in mobile data solutions plays to its strengths as well. Crucially, it has also expanded its relationships with operators and invested in helping them sell solutions to business customers. Other vendors planning to sell wireless handhelds through the operators should learn from its example.”

Phones

The voice-centric segment continues to perform well, up 83% over the first quarter of 2003. Nokia remained overall leader, though its share improved little on last year and fell sequentially. Smartphone shipments of second-placed Sony Ericsson did not keep pace with the market and were flat year-on-year. Siemens, finally starting to hit volumes with its SX1 smart phone appeared in third place for the first time, overtaking Motorola and Orange. Despite the top three positions being filled by vendors shipping Symbian-based devices Microsoft enjoyed its highest ever share (7.8%) of the voice-centric device segment.

“Having Motorola on board is a big help for Microsoft,” said analyst Rachel Lashford, “Most of Microsoft’s smart phone shipments so far have been tied to the Orange network, but with the MPx200 becoming available on other operators’ networks and with more models appearing over the coming months, we would expect shipments to increase substantially. PalmOne’s Treo 600 hasn’t done as well in EMEA as elsewhere; it needs more models and broader operator coverage to become a contender in the smart phone space. The momentum in this segment, however, remains with the Symbian-based vendors.”

It is important to keep in mind that their is more room for growth in the smartphone market, which is miniscule, in the tens of millions, when compared to the close to 600 million worldwide mobile phone market in general. This equation is expected to balance out, however, over the next few years.

More details about the number of units shipped, market share, and the percetage increase or decrease from last year for each of the major handheld vendors can be found in the chart at the beginning of the article. Just click on the image.