Decline In Shipments To Business Triggers PDA Sales Decline 2Decline In Shipments To Business Triggers PDA Sales Decline 2

Reduced sales to businesses was the key factor in a 9.1% decline in shipments of PDAs last year, a study released Monday showed.

Vendors shipped 12.1 million PDAs in 2002, down from 13.3 million the previous year, according to Dataquest, a unit of market-research firm Gartner. Consumers looking for a handheld device to track their schedules and access the Internet bought 70% of the PDAs, with businesses purchasing the remaining 30%.

"The more lucrative enterprise market has been stagnant because of poor economic conditions and a perception that PDAs aren't yet capable of delivering sufficient return on investment," Gartner analyst Todd Kort said in a statement. "The enterprise market is still another year away from embracing PDAs."

Palm Inc. led the way by shipping 4.4 million units, a decline of 12.2% from 2001, followed by Hewlett-Packard, which shipped 1.6 million PDAs--27.2% less than last year. Sony was No. 3, shipping 1.3 million units, 163.2% more than 2001.

Market shares of the three companies in 2002 were 36.8%, 13.5%, and 11%, respectively. The Palm operating system was the leader among PDA operating systems with 6.7 million units, representing 55.2% of the market. Microsoft's Windows CE totaled 3.1 million units, or 25.7% of the market.

The failure of wireless technology to live up to expectations was a key factor in businesses' lack of enthusiasm for PDAs.

"Wireless infrastructure is still immature, and wireless data-security issues haven't been fully resolved," Kort said. "End users still have too many hassles getting wireless devices properly configured. On top of this, wireless data speeds are typically much less than advertised, and costs per megabyte are relatively high, especially in the United States."