Compaq's handheld offering, the iPaq, is making impressive inroads on the market. Recently released figures from UK market research company Canalys (
www.canalys.com
) show that sales of the PDA have shot up by 1 018% in Western Europe for the first three months of 2001 when compared to the same period last year. According to Amanda Saurma-Jeltsch, product manager for Compaq at SDD, these figures put the iPaq into a solid second place in that area with market share of a fraction under 12%.
"While Palm is still a clear leader with a share of 41%, Compaq is making firm inroads into the mobile device market with its offerings," she comments.
Canalys' data indicates that Palm's shipments increased by 60%, while other market players also enjoyed healthy growth - Casio's shipments increased by 172% and Hewlett-Packard saw sales grow by 107%.
Only Psion saw a decline in its shipments, while relative newcomer Handspring, with an attractive and well-priced product, looks set to gain a healthy proportion of this lucrative market.
In terms of market share for mobile device platforms, Palm OS remains a clear leader with over 50%, followed by PocketPC with almost 20% and Psion's EPOC-32/Symbian operating system with around 14%. Canalys' research covers both handhelds and feature/smart phone devices.
"With Compaq's strong - and evidently popular - offering in the PDA market, Palm can no longer be assured of its market dominance," concludes Saurma-Jeltsch.
SDD strives to be South Africa's leading distributor of Compaq products, including iPaq handhelds, ProLiant servers, Armada notebooks and desktop machines.
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SDD, the focused IT company in the Siltek Technology Chain Group, is South Africa's largest broad-based distributor of information technology. SDD encourages black empowerment opportunities and is the partner of choice of several leading vendors. It distributes a wide range of 'best of breed' hardware and software products, as well as peripherals, components and consumables. SDD configures branded hardware and builds-to-order Xylo, Vision and Fujitech, its own range of PCs. SDD has branches in Gauteng, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, East London, Durban, Bloemfontein, Nelspruit and Namibia. Outside South Africa, the company has partnerships in Botswana and Zimbabwe.
Siltek Limited
Siltek Limited is the leader in the Southern African Technology Supply Chain with a turnover of R3-billion in the year to end-June 2000. Listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, Siltek comprises complementary operating divisions namely, Volume Distribution, Specialist Distribution and Supply Chain Services.