Palm rides high on handheld sales

NEWS Palm has upped its share of the handheld market, with its leading products being the two most popular purchases worldwide. Sales of Palm products in this quarter account for 42.6 per cent of the total market, up from 33 per cent in the previous quarter. This equates to 1.63m units out of the total 3.83m units shipped worldwide, according to IDC. Palm's own handheld takes the number one spot, with Handspring - which licences the Palm OS - at number two. But fourth quarter figures also show that Palm's competitors made gains too. Compaq, in the number three spot, upped shipments by 125 per cent on the previous quarter while fourth-placed HP gained 46 per cent. Palm's figures are also down on year-ago figures. During that period, it had a 53 percent share of the market. Overall, total worldwide shipments are down 4.2 per cent on figures for the fourth quarter of 2000. However, there was a massive 68 per cent increase on third quarter numbers. The company's share priced edged up slightly by one per cent by time of close on Nasdaq.