Worldwide handset shipments in the first quarter increased more than 16% over 2002

IDC released a report with numbers relative to 1Q03 for mobile handsets shipments. The highlights are:

Nokia: shipped more than twice as many units as its closest competitor and maintained its leadership status. Of particular note, Nokia pushed the industry in new directions with the announcement of its N-Gage mobile game deck, 3300 music device, and 6800 messaging device.

Motorola: Motorola maintained the number 2 spot through a growing worldwide portfolio of color display devices and unique form factors.

Converged Handheld Devices: nearly 56% share, driven by the shipments of its 3650 and 7650 imaging-enabled models, Nokia continues to dominate the converged handheld device market. Supported by the sales of its P800, SonyEricsson entered the top 5 list at the second spot with 11.1% share.

With this performance, I'm still thinking how Microsoft will enter the mobile market. Yes, because the MS Smartphone Orange SPV sold 50,000 units so far, and it doesn't look like something to worry anyone of the manufacturers in this list:

1	Nokia	38,150,400	35.5%
2	Motorola	16,700,000	15.5%
3	Samsung	13,200,000	12.3%
4	Siemens	8,000,000	7.4%
5	LG	5,620,000	5.2%
	Other	25,916,102	24.1%
	Total	107,586,494

Now, for converged devices, the figures are much smaller:

1	Nokia	980,000	57.3%
2	SonyEricsson	190,000	11.1%
3	Motorola	127,000	7.4%
4	Samsung	88,000	5.1%
5	Handspring	70,000	4.1%
	Other	255,557	14.9%
	Total	1,710,557

The market for smart handheld devices in Western Europe grew by 121% in 1Q03, driven by strong sales of smartphones from Nokia, Sony Ericsson, and Orange.

Sales of standalone handheld devices remained slower, but were buoyed slightly by Dell's introduction of it's low-cost Axim product to the market in February, instigating a price war at the entry price point in the mobile device market. Palm continued to lead the standalone handheld market, but HP came back more strongly with the launch of its small form factor iPaq H1910 device, which helped it maintain ground.

The entry-level Pocket PC market promises to be the new battleground, and is becoming increasingly fierce, with Dell and Viewsonic being new entrants in a market occupied by an increasing number of "unbranded" vendors such as Medion, Yakumo (Vobis), Mitac, and Asus.

The share of the market for converged devices (smartphones and PDA phones) increased to 59% of all mobile device shipments, driven by Symbian-based smartphones.

The commercial availability of the new Nokia 3650 and Sony Ericsson P800 helped boost the share of Symbian based devices to 85% of all converged devices. With more Symbian devices expected for release later in the year, the outlook for Symbian-based smartphones appears very positive. In 2003, IDC expects Symbian Series 60 devices alone to ship more units than all other platforms combined.

"Despite an expected refresh of the Orange SPV product and the potential introduction of another mobile operator-branded device, IDC believes that the release of a Microsoft smartphone-based product by a major branded vendor would assist the Smartphone platform in gaining greater visibility and momentum," commented Andrew Brown, research manager for European Mobile Computing at IDC.