Pocket PCs gain ground in declining market

[Ed Hansberry]

<a href="http://news.com.com/2100-1040-946298.html">http://news.com.com/2100-1040-946298.html</a><br /><br />Palm continues to hold the top spot in world PDA shipments with 32.4% share in the second quarter of 2002, but that is a 33% decline from the first quarter of this year. Hewlett-Packard took 18.6% share, up slightly, which is no small feat in a market that is down 16.5%. Toshiba flat exploded from obscurity to 3.8% of the market. Hi-Tech Wealth and Minren both sell Pocket PC devices in China.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/hansberry/2002/20020725-marketshare.gif" /><br /><br />Total Pocket PC market share worldwide climbed to 29.2% from 21.8% in the first quarter based on the named manufacturers. I cannot break out the "Other" numbers at the bottom. In the United States, it paints an even better picture for Hewlett Packard. Palm shipments dropped 31.2% while HP climbed 7%.

[Andrew Duffy]

Is HP's market share growth the growth of HP and Compaq combined, or is it the amount bigger HP is when you add Compaq's market share? If it's the latter it isn't a good figure at all.

[AhuhX]

Biggest losers this round by OS:
Handspring for Palm and Casio (who didn't even seem to make this list) for PPC.

Next year should be far more interesting...

MS has new version of PPC OS coming out.

HP will release this beast to run it:
http://discussion.brighthand.com/showthread.php?s=1a783f82dd9000c7e223d3360b2d918d&threadid=56320



I wonder if Casio and Handspring will still be around by then? :?:

[Ed Hansberry]

Is HP's market share growth the growth of HP and Compaq combined, or is it the amount bigger HP is when you add Compaq's market share? If it's the latter it isn't a good figure at all.
It is combined. So, HP today is 3.2% larger than HP and Compaq were in Q1 2002.

[Ed Hansberry]

I wonder if Casio and Handspring will still be around by then? :?:
I don't know about Casio. Their E500 and E1xx series were solidly built devices with some design issues - size (E1x) and expandability limitations (E500). The E200 seems to suffer from some quality issues. I hope they are working on a new device. I'd hate to see Casio drop out of the picture or try to go their own way with their BE-300 devices. :(

[TinMan]

In my opinion this is bad news for all. Who cares about market-share when the market is declining? You can fight for a bigger slice of the pie all you want, but I don't see any winners when the pie itself is shrinking. I also don't believe this is a temporary situation--more like a reality check ("Do I really use this thing? Why do I need another so soon?").

Methinks MS (and, to a lesser extent, Palm) should concentrate on convincing people that carrying a PDA is important/fun/helpful/essential/whatever. As for MS, I think their targeting of "mobile professionals" is misguided (all students and non "mobile professionals" using PPCs please rise). PDAs are personal. IMO the PPC market will stagnate if MS doesn't realize that getting PPCs into the hands of as many users as possible is the best way to try drive demand on the enterprise side (you know, kind of like what happened, many years ago, to that PPC market without the first "P" ;) ).

IMHO, etc., etc.


-Mike

[topps]

In my opinion this is bad news for all. Who cares about market-share when the market is declining? You can fight for a bigger slice of the pie all you want, but I don't see any winners when the pie itself is shrinking.

I think that this decline reflect general uncertainty in biz market rather than a direct reflection on PDAs. Yes, I agree that MS et al could do more to convince general users of the usefulness of these devices but the trick is how to do that.

How does market for PDAs compare to other sectors of tech industry? I thought that Ihad read that PDAs had declined a wee bit but that most other sectors had dropped off much more, which would fit with my opening statement.

[TinMan]

How does market for PDAs compare to other sectors of tech industry? I thought that I had read that PDAs had declined a wee bit but that most other sectors had dropped off much more, which would fit with my opening statement.

I don't think you can compare most other (tech) sectors to PDAs. As an example, PCs are quite mature, and have essentially hit a ceiling (what new must-have apps require the latest-and-greatest PC, besides games?). Heck, Office 97 is probably adequate for most people, and it'll run fine on four-year-old PCs (or older).

PDAs, on the other hand, are practically embryonic. While their functionality has still increased year-after-year, I still don't see anything that isn't laden with major compromises. Further, I'm not sure we'll ever return to the post-911, post-tech collapse, way of "thinking" (spending). To many, a PDA is a non-essential "toy," and these are the items that are first to go unless we're in a booming economy.

Conversely, real "toys" (PS2, etc.) have sold enormously well (relative to the current economy), and (factoring in a few games) they practically equal the price-point of many PDAs.

So my point still stands, which I'll rephrase for clarity: PDAs' greatest challenge is justifying the need for their very existence (to the masses, not us geeks). Fighting over a declining market-share does little to overcome this challenge, IMO.



-Mike

[Timothy Rapson]

Palms percentage slipped for *this* quarter, but let us recall that Palms share *increased* vs the PPC in the first quarter of 2002 and this is all virtually without anything new available from either camp this year. The only truly new models this year are from Sony.

Overall, PPC is not making a march to the sea on Palm and Co. They have been up and down and are now at about the same 20% market share they have had since PPC 2000.

With Palm OS 5 well known to be just around the corner it is amazing that Palm is selling anything at all. By this time PPC should have been at 50%. Looking at just the features/price of the Palm M515 vs. the Toshiba E310 what most surprises me is that Palm sells even one of the M515s.


I don't see these numbers as good for anyone. I hope that the new features of OS5 on top of those currently available on Sony and Palm models could bring back the glory days of the Palm. A Christmas with double last years sales of PDAs would be a very nice sign of the day to come when PDAs are as abundant as GameBoys and WalkMans.

[Ed Hansberry]

Overall, PPC is not making a march to the sea on Palm and Co. They have been up and down and are now at about the same 20% market share they have had since PPC 2000.
There is a big difference between 20% and the near 30% they are at this quarter. Lets not turn PPC=20% into a mantra the way Palm=80% for so long - much longer than it really was. :roll: