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PDA News – Sprint PocketPC phone, 2 GB SD card, Handheld sales decline
October 31, 2004 by Brighthand Staff Reads (5,865)
Sprint officially announces HTC Harrier PocketPC phone
Long anticipated, Sprint has officially announced early November availability for their branded version of the HTC Harrier PocketPC phone. The two models, dubbed PocketPC 6600 and PocketPC 6601 for camera-bearing and camera-free versions respectively, will retail for $630. They include integrated Bluetooth–though it is unclear whether this has been crippled to prevent use as a laptop modem–and support for the next generation Ev-DO high-speed wireless internet standard being deployed by Sprint.
SanDisk to market 2 GB SD cards
It took long enough, but soon 2 GB SD memory cards will be available from SanDisk. The cards, which are expected to be available in November, will retail for about $200.
Handheld sales decline in third quarter
For the third straight quarter, overall worldwide handheld sales declined, taking a 4.6% dip compared to the second quarter according to research firm IDC.
PalmOne remains the top seller, with an estimated 736,000 units sold in the quarter. HP, clocking in at 649,000, is running a much closer second for this quarter than it was for those before. PalmOne's loss or HP's gain? Both, actually. PalmOne's sales for the quarter dipped 20%, and HP's increased by 22.4%. Together, these brought the two juggernauts within 88,000 units of each other. In the second quarter, their seperation was nearly 400,000 units. This is partially a result of the fact that during the third quarter, HP had a complete refresh of their product line, while PalmOne had no releases of any kind. Still, there's no denying that the numbers keep getting closer together even without new release cycles.
Dell locked in their third-place status with the continued slide of Sony and a 30% rise in sales over the previous quarter. The sales figure of 188,000 Axims does not include the X50, which came out after the end of the quarter.
A surprise entrant into fourth is Mitac, a manufacturer who almost exclusively sells to the Asian market. Their sales were up 1000% compared to a year ago–no, that's not a typo, I mean one thousand percent–and were up 210% over the second quarter. While their 68,000 units may not sound huge compared to the Big Three, it's enough to make fourth place and beat out Sony.
Sony continues its marketshare death-spiral, sinking to fifth place with a total of 44,000 units sold. Without the international market, it's unlikely that Sony can hold onto a top five position once the last remaining stocks of its models are gone.
And, for the sake of completeness, the report is rounded out by a listing of 436,000 units sold by 'Other.' This general category lumps together all other brands such as Toshiba, Medion, Garmin, Samsung, and others who don't sell enough to make the top five.