MobileMonday Global

^{S60 phones in majority} Nokia rules European smart mobile device

Nokia increased its share in EMEA smart mobile device market in the third quarter. The over all shipments grow 11.7 percent year on year in Q3 2006, up from 10.6 percent in Q2, reports Canalys.

Converged devices grow 19.2 percent, while unconnected handhelds fall again, this time by 42.7 percent.

After Nokia’s whopping 75,2 percent share with 5,5 million shipped smart handsets, the second place was retained by HTC, the fastest growing vendor in the top five.

Growth in the EMEA smart mobile device market in Q3 rose slightly from the previous quarter, but remains well below the 100 percent-plus rates seen for most of last year.

Sony Ericsson re-entered the top five (in fourth place) after a long absence, helping take Symbian’s market share up to 78.7 percent from 76.6 percent a year earlier.

HTC, in second place, was by far the fastest growing of the leading vendors and remained narrowly ahead of third-placed RIM for the second quarter running (note: HTC shipment estimates shown include Qtek-branded devices, but not those branded by network operators or other hardware vendors, which are tracked individually).

HP filled the fifth slot, suffering a year-on-year unit decline partly as a result of the continued shrinking of the handheld segment. It did, however, manage to increase shipments and share sequentially from Q2 2006.

Waiting for retrenchment

Canalys estimates that shipments of unconnected handhelds in the region fell to below half a million - a level not seen since Q3 2002 and a far cry from the million units seen in some quarters over the past two years.

“The shift in demand for consumer GPS navigation, away from handhelds to dedicated personal network devices, PNDs, can really be seen in these numbers,” commented Chris Jones, Canalys director and principal analyst.

“It would not be surprising to see some vendors scale back their efforts in the handheld market within the next couple of quarters if the trend continues. Q4 will be pivotal, as it is typically the biggest quarter by far for this class of device and underperformance may cause vendors to re-evaluate their positions.”

Source: Canalys