RIM Still Da Bomb Diggity In PDA Market

Blackberry Pearl makers Research in Motion have managed to stay on top of the PDA market, shipping more PDAs than any other company and many of its rivals combined, despite the fact that RIM had seen slowed growth during 2006.

The PDA / Smartphone market saw growth in companies like Mio at a staggering 112.1% and Sharp, up 166.2% ; though the likes of Palm and HP saw big losses of 29% and 24.1% negative growth in 2006. Overall market growth was at 18.4%, according to the market report by Gartner.

RIM shipped a total of 3.5 million PDAs in 2006, giving them a 19.8% market share ; versus Palm’s 11.1%, HP’s 9.7%, Mio’s 8.5% and Sharp’s 8%. The good old move to smartphones is driving growth, with 60% of PDA products in 2006 shipping with cellular connectivity for telephone and internet.

RIM’s fortune does not extend to the OS front, where Windows CE is by far the most popular, accounting for 56.1% of all PDAs, trailed by RIM’s OS with 19.8% market share. Palm lost out on a whole 1/3 of their platforms in 2006, now accounting for only 11.7% ; Symbian has 5.4% and Linux grew to 0.9%. Kudos for Linux, so.