“Market trends and market evolution during the past several quarters indicate smart handheld devices have an extremely positive future,” said Kevin Burden, manager for IDC’s Smart Handheld Devices research program. “Technological progress, particularly in mobile multimedia and wireless areas, will continue at a rapid pace, and 2001 will prove to be the year when mobile access devices hit their stride.”
Currently Palm dominates this market with its operating system but new products from Microsoft and Research In Motion have recently challenged this position. “Microsoft and Research In Motion have clearly managed to make inroads to Palm’s market share,” said Burden. “While Palm continues to reign supreme, for the first time the company is facing a solid threat to its dominance.”
According to IDC, smart phones will be the fastest-growing segment of the smart handheld devices market with a compound annual growth rate of 164% between 2000-2004.
