Gartner is reporting that PDA shipments grew 40 percent in the first quarter of 2007 over the same quarter last year with shipments reaching 5.1 million units. IDC’s latest report did not paint as rosy a picture, the main reason for the conflicting results being the different definitions of a PDA that the two companies use. Unlike IDC, Gartner defines a PDA as a data-first, voice-second device designed for use with both hands. That family does not include devices such as Palm’s Treo 750 and the BlackBerry 8100 family, but does include cellular PDAs like the BlackBerry 8700.
The top five vendors remain RIM with an 18.1 percent marketshare followed by Mio at 11.1 with its popular GPS-enabled car-navigation units, Samsung at 8.8, Sharp with 8.5 and Nokia with 6.2 percent.
Looking at operating systems only, Windows Mobile device shipments grew 64 percent to almost 3.2 million units in the report period. Other operating systems, including RIM, Symbian and Palm, all showed declines. Microsoft has now extended its lead to 62.1 percent of the market.