Canalys research indicates that the trends observed within the EMEA mobile device market in 2004 have accelerated during the first half of 2005. Shipments of converged smart mobile devices, namely smart phones and wireless handhelds, grew from 3.6 million in H1 2004 to 9.6 million in H1 2005, representing a 170% year-on-year rise. To put this in perspective, the EMEA mobile phone market excluding these converged smart mobile devices rose by only 11% over the same period. “The smart part has more than doubled in proportion, from 3.2% of the total cellular device market in the first half of 2004, to 7.5% a year later,” said Canalys analyst Rachel Lashford. For the first half of next year Canalys expects combined shipments of smart phones and wireless handhelds to rise to 16.9 million units, equating to around 13% of the overall cellular device market.

The triple-digit growth in converged smart mobile devices is being driven by two quite different categories of customer. On one hand, individual buyers are simply upgrading to the latest high-specification phone, which often happens to be a smart phone. On the other, the rapidly rising interest in mobile e-mail solutions is driving shipments into enterprises, particularly of keyboard-based devices. Canalys estimates that just under 80% of the smart phones shipped in EMEA in the first half of 2005 were Series 60, keypad-based handsets, with Nokia's keyboard-oriented Series 80 models accounting for another 13% and those based on the stylus-oriented UIQ interface a further 4%. The Windows Mobile, Palm OS and BlackBerry smart phone platforms combined to represent the remaining 5%. Windows Mobile of course fares much better in the wireless handheld segment, being used on almost two-thirds of the devices shipped in H1 2005, many of these branded by the mobile operators themselves, the other third being accounted for by RIM with its established BlackBerry wireless handheld design.

Read the full highlights on Canalys web site