Russell took a look a couple weeks back at the sales of smartphones broken down by operating system, and now a research firm has released its view of smartphone and PDA sales for the second quarter.
The firm in question is Canalys, and every quarter when they release these and other numbers I struggle to figure out what to take away from them because they frustratingly insist on lumping in sales of PDAs — whether or not they’ve got local-area, wide-area or no networking connection — with smartphones and other mobile phones. So you end up with a bunch of numbers that aren’t as valuable as they could be: comparing Symbian smartphones versus sales for Palm PDAs and phones, or Nokia phone sales versus HP PDAs. And then their terminology (which helpfully isn’t defined anywhere on their release) leads to more confusion. I realize this is a personal bugbear, and I apologize for sharing it. But the upshot of it is that while I’m sure there’s information of value in here, I don’t want to make assertions based on my misunderstanding or misinterpretation of their terms.
So, in any case, here’s what I can figure out:
- Nokia’s smartphone sales are booming. The report says it shipped nearly 6.7 million of them in the second quarter, a 240% increase over 2004 and 24% over the first quarter. Consequently, it’s the clear leader in this market, whether “this market” means smartphones or smartphones and PDAs. If it’s the former, it’s got a 55% share.
- Palm’s sales are fairly stagnant as sales of non-wireless PDAs fall. Its sales were off 1% from last year, and up just 5% from last quarter, when the entire market grew 13%.
- RIM keeps chugging away. It should pass the million-devices-in-a-quarter mark very soon.
- Motorola came out of nowhere to #4. While it’s only selling 8% as many smartphones as Nokia, it saw a torrid 637% growth over last year. My best guess is that this is from the growing number of Linux phones, rather than the strength of any of its few Windows Mobile products.
The overwhelming takeaway from this is that PDA sales are (still) dying, which is the same conclusion I’ve reached from any Canalys PR I’ve looked at, so no real news there. I’d also venture that sales of PDAs with just Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, rather than any cellular connectivity, are dropping pretty steadily too, but there’s no way to tell. The only other observation I’ve got is to look at the Palm and RIM numbers in comparison to other smartphone vendors, Nokia in particular, which sold 3 times as many devices. Then compare the amount of press, particularly in the US, devoted to Blackberrys and Treos versus smartphones from other vendors.
Carlo having almost given up looking at PDA’s all I can see that is maintaining the market here in Europe is there use in cheap SatNav systems. Most Taxi drivers in my part of the world now have a PDA powered system as do most small delivery van drivers. This is a niche that seems to be pushing sales along.
As for Moto’s sales in Europe we are seeing a reasonable number of A1000 devices bought that use UIQ based symbian on 3’s UMTS network. CPW also are offering a special offer at present which sees the phone sold as a music centre rather than a smartphone
As for the progress of Blackberry, with Visto gaining more positive contracts, I guess its only a matter of time before RIM becomes a software rather than a hardware business.
carlo,
you need to also look at the numbers regionally.
pda sales are mostly in the us. palm and rim sales are mostly in the us.
nokia sales are global, minus the us. what if nokia got a clue and executed well in the us? i think that’s more likely (though slim) than palm and rim getting a clue and making tracks in the rest of the world.
tchau,
chalrie
carlo,
one more thing related to _why_ there is such a regionally discrepancy.
the most successful deivces will be the ones that fit the communication lifestyle of the region.
the us-vs-rest of world, in terms of what kind of handheld they use, is part visibility of the companies, part regional presence, and part communication lifestyles.
nokia’s sales are almost completely series 60 devices. these are sms and mobile imaging devices - good enough for the communication lifestyle of the global mobile phone user.
the Us sales are mostly phones like the crackberry and the treo. these phones are basically email devices, because email is a communication lifestyle that americans know and that works for them. but, these deivces really aren’t mobile phones. indeed, i don’t think they serve the mobile lifestyle too well. that’s fine, since the mobile phone lifestyle is still nacent in the us. therefore, a good-enough communication (albeit only via email) device in the us is much better than some fancy series 60 phone that doesn’t fit the communication lifestyle in the us.
but, i think in the past year, the mobile phone lifestyle is starting to permeate the younger crowd. these corporate email devices might still last a bit longer? but, what’s going to happen to devices like the hip-top?
tchau,
charlie
Interesting, thanks for the comments, guys.
The sales of Treos and Blackberrys here have almost exclusively been professional/prosumer. But as the nascent mobile lifestyle that Charlie refers to, you’ll see bigger smartphone sales here, too, on the backs of consumers. Texting has taken hold, mobile IM is growing — as demand for these and other services grows, people will want more powerful phones capable of accessing them.