"The worldwide market for handheld devices experienced its fourth successive quarter of year-over-year decline in the fourth quarter of 2004. According to research agency IDC's Worldwide Handheld QView, shipments of such devices fell nearly 20 percent year-over-year in the fourth quarter of 2004 to 2.8 million units. This means that for 2004, handheld device shipments reached 9.2 million units, a decrease of 13 percent over 2003's shipments of 10.6 million units," reports Techtree.com.
"In contrast, in another report that was released on January 27, IDC had said that mobile phone purchases had been the highest ever. According to IDC's worldwide mobile phone tracker, worldwide mobile phone shipments totaled 194.3 million units in the fourth quarter of 2004, growing 24 percent year over year. For the full year 2004, worldwide mobile phone shipments increased 29.3 percent over 2003."
