Asia-Pacific Region Overtakes EMEA in Smartphone Shipments

The latest market estimates from Canalys show some major changes happening in the worldwide market for smart mobile devices (handhelds, wireless handhelds and smart phones), with new names appearing in the global top five. Despite a sequential fall in quarterly smart phone shipments, leader Nokia's year-on-year growth of 60% meant it increased its market share slightly, helped by demand for highly popular multimedia models such as the N70. RIM made substantial gains to strengthen its position in second, growing at 85% and overtaking Palm both globally and in the US market for the first time.

Palm posted slight growth overall, but slipped to third in the worldwide rankings. Canalys estimates that Treo smart phone shipments were up 44% on the same quarter one year ago, but the Treo is yet to gain traction outside the US - a situation Palm will hope to correct with new models expected later this year. Palm's growing smart phone sales were offset by steep declines in those of handhelds. Globally the handheld segment was down 25%, with the top four players in this field (Palm, HP, Dell and Acer) all seeing year-on-year falls, and the only leading handheld vendor to post growth being fifth-placed Mio Technology, up 7%.

"It is in the converged device arena that we are seeing the biggest changes," said Canalys senior analyst and research manager Rachel Lashford. "In addition to the shipment increases made by Nokia and RIM, Japanese vendors such as Mitsubishi and Sharp have achieved very high volumes of their new Symbian-based FOMA smart phones in Q1, catapulting them into the global top five. With increased shipments from Fujitsu, and a new device from Sony Ericsson, Symbian is enjoying not only significant Japanese market success, but also seeing record global market share."

This increased activity from the Japanese vendors has also helped the Asia-Pacific region overtake EMEA (Europe, Middle East & Africa) in overall quarterly smart mobile device sales for the first time since Canalys began tracking this market six years ago. In Q1 2006, Asia-Pacific represented 46% of all shipments compared to 39% for EMEA and 15% for the Americas.

"The market in volume terms is still dominated by purchases by individuals, rather than formal enterprise deployments," Lashford continued. "But with RIM's legal problems receding, Microsoft's push into mobile e-mail through Windows Mobile 5.0, and arrival of the delayed Nokia E-series devices we expect to see more enterprise activity in the coming quarters, particularly if more operators begin to offer business-friendly, predictable tariffs for mobile data - ones that encourage adoption rather than punish usage."

Posted to the site on 26th April 2006