Mobility Mind

Palm’s smartphone market share goes up

Finally, some good news for Palm. The latest report from IDC shows that Palm had a 13.4% share of the smartphone market for the first quarter of this year, up from 7.9% in the previous quarter. This is still behind Apple’s 19.2%.

Palm’s gain was largely because of the popularity of their consumer smartphone the Centro. With a price point of US$99, though, Palm’s margin must be pretty slim — so don’t expect high profits. The runaway leader of the smartphone market is RIM, with a hefty 44.5% share. It’s hard to imagine that just a few years ago Palm was the smartphone leader, and RIM was the niche player.

[ via Bloomberg ]