The Handheld segment, made of PDA devices seems to have been shrinking for years, but now registered a huge drop of 40 percent. The reason for this fall seems to be the growth in smartphone sales, the direct competitor for such devices.

Only little over 700,00 PDAs have been sold at a worldwide scale during the third quarter of this year, according to market-watchers IDC. That is 40 percent less than the figures registered for last year's same quarter. Surprisingly enough, the drop in sales has been present for fifteen quarters, which starts posing a problem for producers.

There is also a somewhat optimistic view on the entire matter. "The handheld device market may be down, but is not necessarily out", considers Ramon T. Llamas, research analyst with IDC's mobile device technology and trends team. Moreover, "The handheld still has a loyal, if shrinking, following in developed economies, especially among enterprise users. In emerging markets, the appeal of the handheld devices seems anchored in the fact that, in the absence of a monthly service plan, it has a lower total cost of ownership compared to mobile phones and/or the converged mobile device", he further added.

Not even the touchscreen feature has been enough to save PDAs. Moreover, a great number of smartphones now use this technology and bring similar capabilities along with a great interest in the most evolved mobile phone services.

The difference between the two types of devices is rather slim and many people actually consider PDAs to be smartphones. The main one might be that PDAs focus on mainly bringing as many desktop services, such as calendar, organizing, email, word processing and bring communication services only at a secondary importance. Things stand differently with smartphones. Although the current evolution rate heads them towards packing features similar to those of a desktop, their main interest is that of helping the user communicate easier.