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Converged Devices Continue Growth In Q2: IDC |
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Written by Adam Gosling
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Thursday, 14 September 2006 |
Nokia maintained its worldwide dominance of the converged
mobile devices market according to IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone
Tracker. It still managed a 46.9 per cent share of the market despite a
challenge from Motorola.
In all the second quarter of 2006 was a healthy three months
for the market with 19.3 million units shipping during the three month period.
That's only a 1.9 improvement on Q1, but a significant rise of 42.1 per cent
over Second Quarter 2005,
IDC defines a converged mobile device as a mobile phone
having a high-level operating system, such as BlackBerry, Linux, Palm, Symbian,
or Windows Mobile.
"That quarterly shipments are reaching the 20 million
unit mark in a single quarter is a significant milestone," said Ramon
Llamas, research analyst for IDC's Mobile Markets team. "As recently as
two years ago, it would have taken an entire year to ship that kind of volume.
Since then, the converged mobile device, or smartphone, has evolved in terms of
functionality and appeal.
"In addition, as functionalities have increased, prices have
decreased, making converged mobile devices not just attractive, but affordable,"
he said.
"Although the year-over-year growth rate appears to be
slowing when compared to previous quarters, this is due to a steadily rising
volume of shipments and increasingly difficult comparisons," said the IDC
analyst.
"However, IDC expects to see continued growth in
quarterly shipment volume with shipments reaching nearly 100 million units for
the year."
"The growing availability of email solutions that can
support a variety of platforms is really driving demand for converged mobile
devices," said Ryan Reith, research analyst for IDC's Mobile Phone
Tracker. "In particular, IDC has seen a steady increase in demand for
enterprise-based devices for mobile workers."
The devices are also
becoming popular with consumers, say IDC. Enhanced
multimedia applications geared toward a richer video and imaging are increasingly seeing these devices positioned in a prosumer bracket rather than strictly business.
As Motorola emerged as the number 2 vendor by
shipment volume in 2Q06 with a year-on-year that beat the rest of the field thanks to its MotoQ
release in the U.S.
and the MING device in Asian, RIM (Research In Motion) also managed a healthy
year-over-year growth to position it as number three. The BlackBerry actually experienced a decline in second quarter shipments compared to its first
quarter volumes.
With Panasonic at number four thanks to its dominance in Japan, and Sharp in fifth place also thanks to Japan sales, other vendors such as BenQ, Samsung and Sony Ericsson were kept out of the top five.
Top Five Worldwide Converged Mobile Device Vendors, Second Quarter 2006 (Units
in millions)
Vendor
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2Q06 Unit Shipments
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2Q06 Market Share
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2Q05 Unit Shipments
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2Q05 Market Share
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2Q06/2Q05
Change
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1. Nokia
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9.0
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46.9%
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6.7
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49.6%
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34.2%
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2. Motorola
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1.7
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8.9%
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0.6
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4.1%
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212.5%
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3. RIM
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1.3
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6.7%
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0.9
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6.9%
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38.0%
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4. Panasonic
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1.2
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6.4%
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1.5
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10.9%
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-16.5%
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5. Sharp
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1.0
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5.1%
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0.0
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0.0%
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NA
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Others
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5.0
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25.9%
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3.9
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28.5%
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29.2%
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Total
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19.3
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100.0%
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13.6
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100.0%
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42.1%
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Source: IDC, Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker,
September 2006
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