A comparison of handheld shipments in 2005 to 2004 shows a 16.7 percent decrease from 9.1 million to 7.5 million units shipped, despite Q4 2005 reaching volumes of 2.2 million units. Much of this decline can be attributed to the growing sales of converged mobile devices (combining PIM functionality with telephony). Much of the saving grace for handhelds has been new functionalities like GPS, Wi-Fi and multimedia capabilities.
Palm continues to hold on to its position as worldwide leader within the handheld device market with a 45.6 percent market share. Hewlett-Packard follows with 20.8 percent (despite a shipment decrease of 33.1% year over year), Dell with 10.2 percent, Acer at 5.7 percent and Medion at 4.3 percent despite shipments mostly focused on Western Europe.