HP closes gap in mobile device market, but Palm back on top

- Palm's Q4'01 European shipments a third lower than Q4'00, HP's nearly double

Reading, UK - Tuesday, January 29th 2002 - for immediate release

• Total market in Q4 2001 down 19% on Q4 2000, but whole year is up 12%
• Palm once again leads the European mobile device market, with 34.1% share
• Compaq remains leading Windows CE vendor, with 13.7% share
• Nokia still doing well, with 9.1%, but does not repeat initial launch volume
• Availability of new Pocket PC 2002 model brings HP best ever quarter, taking 8.8% of market
• Wireless integrated devices account for 20% of the mobile device market

Western Europe Q4 2001 - highlights from the Canalys research

The mobile device market in Q4 2001 suffered in comparison with high shipments a year ago, but was 64% up on Q3 2001. Palm regained the number one spot, as it benefited from strong low-end sales during the Christmas period, but its overall shipments were down substantially on Q4 2000. Compaq's iPAQs retained their position just behind Palm, as they have all year. Nokia, with its 9210 Communicator, managed to stay ahead of most of the competition, despite failing to capitalise on its launch success.

Senior analyst Sandy Fitzpatrick commented: "I think the real success story of the quarter is HP. HP's performance in this space has been disappointing for years, but it had a really great quarter, thanks to good availability of its new Microsoft Pocket PC 2002 Jornadas. It was a quarter shaped by individual purchases rather than corporate roll-outs, and new models from several vendors have clearly appealed to early adopters looking to replace older devices."

Motorola and Sony also posted good shipment figures this quarter. Sony's high-end colour CLIÉ helped it to a 3.2% share of the market, while Motorola accounted for 5.3%, thanks to its Accompli 008 feature phone meeting with early success.

"There are a lot of new players in the market now, and more to come in Q1," added Canalys analyst Andy Buss. "HP has closed the gap on Compaq this quarter, but Toshiba, Fujitsu Siemens, and NEC will all be adding to the competition over the coming months. Also, Bluetooth models have started to appear and GPRS services are becoming available. The various wireless technologies are sure to have an impact in 2002, at both a total market and at the individual vendor level."

The changes in vendor shares have resulted in Palm OS once again becoming the leading operating system and Symbian falling back after the highs of Q3 2001, but as Buss pointed out: "Windows CE is the only OS that has grown from a year ago."