Kuala Lumpur, January 03, 2007 – According to the latest market data from IDC, the Malaysia handheld market, including standalone handhelds and converged devices, grew by 42% year on year in the third quarter of 2006 as shipments reached 271 thousand units. However, while market performance constituted a significant improvement following the market decline seen in the previous quarter, growth was buoyed solely by healthy converged device growth of 45% year on year as the handheld market declined for a second consecutive quarter.

"In the wake of a disappointing first half of 2006, the third quarter reinforced expectations of a strong finish to the year as key vendors launched new products to the market ahead of the high-volume final quarter. Similarly, further broadening of Nokia's product portfolio, price reductions, and aggressive promotional activity in tandem with substantial growth for Windows Mobile drove market growth," said Elaine Lee, Handheld Research Analyst, IDC Malaysia. “All handheld devices vendors suffered negative year-on-year growth during the quarter as the effect of the inevitable shift to converged devices.”

Proportional to aggressive declines for handhelds and growth of 45% year on year for converged devices, the latter grew to represent almost 100% of the device landscape compared to 97% in the corresponding quarter of 2005. With the converged device market continuing to rely largely on S60 shipments in consumer segments, Windows Mobile enjoyed market growth of 114% sequentially with the aggressive product launch from vendors such as O2, Hewlett-Packard and Dopod.

While industry-specific applications and email solutions are driving the demand for converged devices within the enterprise, the devices are also very popular with consumers. This is due to the presence of high-level operating systems on the devices that encouraged usage of enhanced multimedia applications geared towards richer imaging and music experience. This is, perhaps, the reason why device vendors are increasingly characterizing these devices as 'prosumer.'

Taxonomy Note: Converged devices are either voice- or data-centric and are capable of synchronizing personal information and/or email with server, desktop, or laptop computers. Positioned to answer the "multiple device question," and replacing the need to carry a mobile phone and a pen-based handheld or a mobile phone and a pager, for example, these devices may also include an expanding list of features, such as multimedia or email. Such devices match wireless telephony capability to evolved operating systems or application environments, such as the Palm OS, Windows Mobile 5.0, and the Symbian platform, and include the ability to download data to local storage, run applications, and store user data beyond their required PIM capabilities.

Source: IDC, 2006

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