Windows Mobile continuing to gain market share
Unit sales of smartphones nearly tripled between 2004 and 2005, but growth slowed to around 50 percent in the first half of 2006 over the first half of 2005, In-Stat reports. Additionally, Windows Mobile grabbed U.S. marketshare to match that of BlackBerry and Palm during the first half of 2006, according to the analyst firm.
The growing acceptance of smartphones "offers new competition to established products such as BlackBerry, Personal Information Managers, and PDAs," In-Stat says.
Analyst Bill Hughes notes, however, that despite "spectacular sales, many smartphone users continue to carry the very devices that smartphones are meant to replace." Additionally, he points out that "users have been slow to add new applications to their devices," and most "have only downloaded a few applications."
According to Hughes, much of 2005's robust smartphone shipment growth can be attributed to a surge in Linux-based handset shipments in Asia, during the final months of the year. However, he adds, these devices -- primarily from Motorola, NEC, and Panasonic -- "don't really have the advantages of smartphones," in comparison to the capabilities offered by devices running the Windows Mobile, Blackberry, and Palm OS stacks. Although the Linux-based handsets can run user-added Java applications, Hughes considers them to be more on the level of feature phones than smartphones.