European PDA market shrinking

The Western European market for personal digital assistants (PDAs) is still hungover from its 2001 binge, with shipments for the first quarter of this year declining 16 percent from the same quarter a year ago, according to analysts Gartner Dataquest. Palm is left with 34.8 percent fewer shipments for the first quarter of this year, compared with the same quarter last year. However, it is still Europe's leader, shipping 221,175 units and holding 39.4 percent of the market. Handspring also declined in PDAs, its shipments falling 28.1 percent to 32,010. The winners in both shipments and market share were Pocket PC PDA vendors Compaq, Casio and HP, all of which increased their market share due to their focus on corporate sales, Gartner said. --Matthew Broersma, ZDNet UK