Handheld computer maker Palm recovered some ground in the third quarter in Europe that it had earlier lost to rivals using Microsoft software, according to research from Gartner Dataquest. But there were no real winners in the quarter, as the market as a whole declined after years of impressive growth.
Shipments decreased by 34.5 per cent year-on-year because of high inventories and a worsening economic outlook. That compared with growth rates of 7 per cent in the second quarter and 123 per cent in 2000.
Palm gained share with price cuts and new products with extra memory slots. The US company managed to ship 123,000 of its personal digital assistants, for a 37.9 per cent market share. That is 5.6 percentage points above its share in the previous quarter, but still far below the 52.5 per cent it had in the third quarter a year ago.
Compaq was the big loser as its Microsoft-based iPAQ dropped to a 16.9 per cent share from 30.2 per cent in the second quarter.
But Gartner did not suggest Palm had turned a corner and that Compaq would remain down. It said many buyers had postponed purchases of iPAQ products ahead of Microsoft's new software platform Pocket PC 2002, which was launched earlier this month.
