MobileMonday Global

^{Global smart phone shipments treble in Q3} Nokia reaches the magic 40% share in mobile devices

Overall worldwide mobile device shipments in Q3 2004 up 83 percent on Q3 2003 according to the market research company Canalys’ quarterly figures. Data-centric devices (handhelds/wireless handhelds) were up 18 percent while voice-centric devices (smart phones/feature phones) grew 190 percent.

Nokia, with its ever expanding range of Symbian-based smart phones, continued to dominate the overall mobile device market in Q3 2004, having almost 40 percent share by units shipped, up from 33 percent last quarter and 22 percent a year ago. Nokia’s year-on-year growth was whipping 230 percent.

Treo 600 is the star performer

Despite Nokia’s lead it was second placed palmOne that stood out this quarter with worldwide shipments of the Treo 600 smart phone rising to over 300,000. This is 30 percent of all palmOne devices shipped in Q3. Over a quarter of a million of these were shipped in the US, following a period where it was hampered by supply problems.

“PalmOne is the clear leader in the US smart phone segment, having raised its share of this market to a record 55 percent this quarter,” said Chris Jones, a Canalys senior analyst.

“The new Treo 650 is a welcome refresh of the product, but it still needs to branch out into other designs and get more operators on board if it wants to take on the very strong European and Japanese smart phone vendors in the markets beyond North America,” said Jones.

“The RIM BlackBerry 7100 series will also provide competition and is likely to get attention from customers looking for a voice-capable device in a smaller handset form factor.”

Canalys estimates put Nokia in second place for US smart phone shipments in Q3, with 23 percent share. In contrast, Nokia’s share of the smart phone market in EMEA rose to 87 percent in the same period, the highest it has been for over two and a half years.

PalmOne also continues to lead in worldwide shipments of data-centric mobile devices (handhelds and wireless handhelds), though its shipments fell by 12 percent year-on-year in Q3 to just under 750,000, giving it a 25 percent share of this segment.

HP nears palmOne

Second placed HP increased global shipments of its iPAQs by 19 percent, to bring it much closer to palmOne, with 23 percent market share – a gap of just 2 percent compared to 10 percent one year previously. HP is one of several vendors that are benefiting from the rising demand for handheld-based GPS navigation solutions in Europe.

This rise in shipments kept HP in third place worldwide in the overall mobile device market, after Nokia and palmOne. In fourth place overall was RIM, whose BlackBerry device shipments continue to enjoy year-on-year growth rates above 300 percent.

Source: Canalys; "Mobile device market: feature phones, smart phones, handhelds, wireless hendhelds