Worldwide Handheld Device Market Continues Downhill Slide As Dell Exits the Market, says IDC study

The worldwide handheld device market opened the year with its thirteenth consecutive quarter of year-on-year decline as user interest continued to transition towards converged mobile devices and other consumer electronics devices. According to IDC's Worldwide Handheld QView, vendors shipped just over 900,000 handheld devices in the first quarter of 2007, 36.3 percent less than the previous quarter and 40.6 percent less than the same quarter a year ago. The decrease in shipments coincides with the announcement that one of the leading vendors, Dell, is leaving the industry.

"Dell's exit from the handheld device market underscores the market's decline," says Ramon Llamas, research analyst with IDC's Mobile Device Technology and Trends team. "The features found on a handheld device are not exclusive to handheld devices. Personal information management, the key feature that once distinguished handheld devices, can now be found commonly on converged mobile devices. The growing popularity of converged mobile devices combined with declining prices for laptop computers have put tremendous pressure on the handheld device market. The addition of multimedia and GPS features onto handheld devices did not stem their decline because standalone multimedia players and personal navigation devices grew in popularity. The growth in these other segments have come at the expense of the handheld device as vendors have responded eagerly with new, feature-rich products."

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