Windows Phone Thoughts: Ok, who's talking smack about market share numbers?

Ok, we've all seen the market share numbers from the IDC report that show the 2nd quarter market is down 9% from last year and 16% from the first quarter. But what are they really saying? Confused? Hang on. You ain't seen nuthin yet. And for all those PalmOS enthusiast sites claiming victory in the 5% gain from last year, see below.

Ok, the chart below has 4 data columns.
• Yellow - 2nd Quarter 2002 shipments (units, not dollars)
• Gray - 2nd Quarter 2001 shipments
• Blue - 1st Quarter 2002
• Green - The growth (or shrinkage) in the market. The left half of this column is the Yellow vs the Gray. The right half is the Yellow vs the Blue.

At the bottom, I've grouped by the OS that vendor primarily uses. Other is a mishmash. It has Palm (probably Acer), Pocket PC (Minren) and a bunch of cheapo proprietary devices (like Da Vinci) sold in various places - lots in Asia. I am 99% sure Legend is a PPC player but if someone has definitive proof they sell other things as well, let me know. I know they don't do Palm - at least not according to PalmSource's OEM page.


So, what does it all mean? Here is a quick rundown.

OS Analysis:
• PalmOS did in fact gain 5% from the same quarter as last year in market share (48.7% vs 43.7%) and volumes were actually up 1.2%. Michael Mace has made comments to that effect and when you recall that Mr. Mace is CCO of PalmSource, he is thinking PalmOS, not Palm Inc. Now, what was going on in the 2nd quarter of 2001 for PalmOS? Lessee..... that's right! No M50x devices! The Palm V was rotting on the shelves in warehouses. Mr. Yankowski (Palm ex-CEO) opened his big mouth about the April ship date of the M500 and M505 and buying for existing devices dried up. It wasn't until June that those things really started showing up. So their numbers last year were artifically low. Way low. 5% growth isn't much to get happy about. And then the fact they dropped 30.5% from Q1 volumes.
• Windows CE/Pocket PC lost .5% share in the 2nd quarter 2002 vs the 2nd quarter 2001. .005. Not 5%. Say that with me. Point-five-percent. PPC/CE is down 10% in units shipped versus last year (see discussion of the iPAQ iXPLOSION below) and up 5.5% in units shipped over Q1 of this year. Pocket PC units up 5.5% Q2 vs Q1, PalmOS units down 30.5% Q2 vs Q1. Pocket PC market share up 6.6% versus the first quarter, PalmOS market share down 10.2% in the same period.
• Linux.. oh who cares. Next.
• RIM is actually up a bit both vs. Q1 2002 (gray) and Q1 2002 (blue). But they are a bugfart in the whole picture, so that's all I'll say about that.
• Other got smacked versus last year - down 6% from last year (gray) in share and 41.3% in units. It is up though versus Q1 of this year.

OEM Analysis
• HP dropped in share 6% versus last year but is up 1.4% versus Q1 of this year. Recall that last year Q2 was the quarter that the iPAQ was selling like nuts, so their drop this year doesn't bother me. It was a bit inflated last year from all the pent up demand. They could also be suffering from Toshiba entering the market.
• Sony is up huge over last year but up only slightly from Q1 this year. The NR70/NR70V must have been a great flagship product but doesn't seem to have done much for volumes. I wish I had dollars for these reports. I could see if these volumes were expensive or cheap products. That would be four more columns and I could use orange, purple, red and olive.
• Palm Inc. shrank in both time periods as shown in the top row of the green column.
• Toshiba came from nonexistence last year to take 3.8% of the market this quarter.
• Casio. Never have I seen a company make so many changes (new proprietary CE device, then dump Pocket PC) and not budge up or down much.
• Handspring... so sad. Oh well. Remember Unisys, the big computer maker? Me neither. Handspring is the Unisys of PDA makers. Can't seem to find their way and in a few years, no one will remember them. {sniff sniff}
• RIM... oh never mind.