Canalys: Worldwide Smartphone Market Soars in Q3

Canalys has issued a new report that finds the market for converged smart mobile devices continues to soar. Key highlights include:

• Global shipments of smart mobile devices up 75% year-on-year in Q3 2005
• Handheld shipments fall 18%, while converged devices more than double in volume
• Leader Nokia ships record 7.1 million smart phones, up 142% year-on-year
• Palm shipments down 2% overall, but Treo smart phones up 71%, overtaking its handhelds for first time
• HP re-enters top five as hw6500 series wireless handhelds perform well

The report analyzes the performance of the top five vendors - Nokia, Palm, RIM, Motorola and HP.

Canalys estimated that Nokia's "year-on-year growth of 142%" was almost twice the market average, and EMEA "accounted for just under 70% of the vendor’s smart phone shipments in Q3." For the first time, shipments of Palm’s Treo smart phones overtook those of all its handhelds combined, and represented 53% of its shipments globally. Canalys noted that Palm is "still the only vendor other than Nokia shipping more than a million smart mobile devices each quarter."

Canalys also found that RIM's growth was slowing. analyst Rachel Lashford said, “Despite pioneering the market for enterprise push e-mail solutions and doing a great job of signing up new operators in many countries the company [RIM] is coming under increasing pressure from a number of hardware and software vendors, all chasing this lucrative segment."