Market research firm Canalys is reporting that the worldwide mobile device market grew by 41% during the first quarter of this year over the first quarter of 2003. The brand and type of devices that have been succeeding in different regions, however, demonstrated a considerably amount of variation. Canalys defines the mobile device market as feature phones, smartphones, handhelds, and wireless handhelds.

The most significant growth took place, not surprisingly, in the nascent smartphone sector, which grew by 115%. Handhelds on the other hand grew at an anemic rate of 1%. And it appears the chief reason Canalys saw any handheld growth at all is because it lumped devices like Research In Motion and its BlackBerry handhelds, which did very well, and Pocket PC phones, such as T-Mobile's MDA II, into the wireless handheld category.

To PDAStreet and SmartPhoneToday, these types of devices are datacentric smartphones or smartphones that lean more toward the data side of the PDA/phone smartphone equation. Devices, such as most Symbian-based smartphones, Windows Mobile Smartphones and the majority of Palm-based smartphones lean more toward the phone side of the smartphone equation. These are the types of devices Canalys exclusively defines as smartphones.

According to Canalys, Nokia was the overall worldwide mobile device market leader in the first quarter, but the gap between it and the other top companies, like palmOne and Hewlett-Pakcard, is much smaller outside EMEA (Europe, Middle East & Africa). So in the EMEA, Nokia commanded 48% of the market, while globally that number dropped to 28%.

In terms of smartphones, Nokia dominated with a 73% share in EMEA, while palmOne, the market leader in North America only accounted for 1%, behind Motorola and several non-US firms including Sony Ericsson, Siemens and Orange.

In North America, palmOne is the leading smartphone vendor with 37% share, ahead of Nokia (25%), Motorola (16%) and Samsung (15%). Nokia’s share in the Asia/Pacific region, a region that accounts for a third of the global market for smartphones, is similar, but it is behind fellow Symbian-based vendor Fujitsu, with Motorola close behind.

“These regional differences can have quite profound effects on future global market progression,” said Chris Jones, Canalys director and senior analyst. “It is very easy for companies in a strong position in one territory to assume they can carry that success into others, but a product design and brand that is accepted in, for example, the U.S., may not do so well in Europe or Asia, and vice versa. In the smart phone and wireless handheld segments the vendor’s operator relationships are also critical.”