The latest figures released by IDC offered another blow to the handheld device market today with the analyst company citing a year-on-year drop of 18.7 percent on the sales of handhelds in Q4 of 2004. With 2.8 million PDAs sold worldwide in the quarter, helping to make up yearly sales of 9.2 million worldwide, the year as a whole was down on 2003 sales of 10.6 million units.
IDC suggests the withdrawal of both Sony and Toshiba from the handheld arena may have attributed to the slump in sales. However, it would seem that the decisions were a wise decision in an increasingly tough market. The main reason for the decline of PDAs has more to do with adoption of smartphones and wider availability of PIM functions and extras, such as GPS, in standard mobile phone handsets.
