Ed Hansberry
11-12-2003, 02:00 PM
<a href="http://www4.gartner.com/5_about/press_releases/asset_53947_11.jsp">http://www4.gartner.com/5_about/press_releases/asset_53947_11.jsp</a><br /><br />Last year, HP had really slowed down, offering $749 iPAQ 3970s as their mainstream product. This year, things are quite a bit different with more consumer friendly priced 1900 and 2200 lines, coupled with the new Windows Mobile 2003 platform. Their volumes show it, increasing from 292,850 units to 581,414, a 98% jump. "HP refreshed its product line with five new models following the launch of Windows Mobile 2003 in late June, and it was first to market with OS upgrades for most of its installed base," Todd Kort said. "The new HP models received favorable reviews and reached much lower price points than HP had offered before. This helped <a href="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=19623">HP capture the market lead in the Western Europe and Asia/Pacific regions</a>." Interestingly, this news of HP capturing the EMEA market during the third quarter escaped other sites, despite their records of reporting EMEA numbers. :? <br /><br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/hansberry/2003/20031112-q3marketsharechart.gif" /><br /><b>Figure 1:</b> Unit Volume Growth For the 3rd Quarter 2003 vs. 3rd Quarter 2002<br /><br />Palm rose just 6.5% in spite of newer models like the Tungsten T/Tungsten T2, Tungsten C, Tungsten W and Zire 71 lines that didn't exist last year at this time. The Tungsten T3 wasn't out to have any impact on the Q3 numbers. Sony also dropped quite a bit despite a flurry of new and daring designs. You can read more about <a href="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=20314">Sony's recent problems here</a>. Toshiba also took a hit, and justifiably so. They are the only Pocket PC vendor in the chart with declining numbers. I hope they have learned a lesson in how not to treat customers with their non-e740 upgrade policy. I'd like to see Toshiba come back swinging because they make a solid product. Finally, Dell showed up on the chart. Recall that last year, the popular Axim X5 showed up during the Christmas selling season.<br /><br />Note that overall, PDA shipments were relatively flat, decreasing just 0.2%. There was just a big shakeup as volumes shifted from PalmOS products to Windows Mobile. "The worldwide PDA market would have suffered a much steeper decline if not for the strong growth by Hewlett-Packard. If HP's results were removed, the PDA market would have declined 13 percent year over year. HP's worldwide PDA market share reached 23.1 percent in the third quarter of 2003 (see Figure 1), an all-time high for the company." You can read additional info in this <a href="http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,113368,tk,dn111103X,00.asp">PC World article</a>.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/hansberry/2003/20031112-q3marketsharegraph.gif" /><br /><b>Figure 2:</b> Market Share By Major OEM For The 3rd Quarter, 2003