Ramon Llamas Quotations

After nine consecutive quarters of year-over-year decline, many are wondering how long this trend will continue and whether the market will see a reverse.

RIM, as a phone with email push capabilities on top of scheduling and other functions, is a very attractive value proposition compared to handhelds that lack some capabilities. This is a mature market; beyond PIM, we haven't seen any new function for handhelds bring a really broad return-no new killer app.

Offering solutions beyond (personal information management), such as GPS, and reaching out towards first-time users are important steps, but will not necessarily bring about a return to growth. Finding and expanding more solutions to modern mobile consumers and enterprises have become imperatives for the handheld market to drive growth.

The combination of tremendous competition from converged mobile devices with waning consumer demand for handhelds is forcing manufacturers to search for new or improved solutions that leverage existing hardware and software capabilities,

A decline in shipments following the holiday quarter is expected of mature markets, and the handheld devices market is no different. After nine consecutive quarters of year-over-year decline, many are wondering how long this trend will continue, and whether the market will see a reverse.

Last year, quarterly mobile phone shipments didn't reach 200 million units until the end of the fourth quarter when vendors were keeping the channels' shelves stocked for the holiday rush. As vendors announced new products earlier this year and accelerated their time to market, we've already reached this milestone.

Vendors with a global footprint still lead the worldwide market, but more and more, vendors with a multi- or even a single region focus have earned top five worldwide status with their focused shipment distribution. The departure of other worldwide vendors has opened the door for smaller vendors to improve their position within the market. During the course of the year, several smaller vendors remained within striking distance of beating each other for the number four or five position, and even posed a challenge to some of the worldwide vendors.