More smart people use smartphone?

Worldwide shipments of PDAs and smartphones combined totaled 42.1 million units in the first half of 2006, a 57 percent increase from the same period last year, according to Gartner, Inc. Smartphone shipments bolstered the market growing 75.5 percent to reach 34.7 million units, more than four times the size of the PDA market. PDA shipments increased by 5.7 percent totaling 7.4 million units.

In Japan, smartphone shipments grew 153 percent in the first half of the year, despite a decline of 22 percent in the second quarter of 2006. Japanese smartphone shipments totaled 11.6 million units in the first half of 2006. This allowed Japan to capture the global lead from EMEA, which grew 26.3 percent. EMEA accounted for 30 percent of the worldwide smartphone market, down from 42 percent in the first half of 2005.

The Asia Pacific region overall remained very strong during the first half of 2006, accounting for 29 percent of the worldwide market. Shipments in North America grew 104 percent in the first half of 2006, however, its share of the global smartphone market remained fairly stable at 6.3 percent.

North America remained the only region where PDAs continue to outsell smartphones. In the first half of 2006, the region accounted for 45 percent of worldwide PDA shipments, slightly up from the same period in 2005. In the first half of 2006, the EMEA and the North America regions accounted for 85 percent of the PDA market.