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Handheld telephones are seemingly becoming a thing of the past. For the fourth successive quarter, handheld systems continued their year-over-year decline.

As reported by Techtree.com:

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.

This is the first time since 1999 that worldwide handheld device shipments have slipped to under 10 million units and the third straight year of decline since the market's peak in 2001. The year also saw companies like Sony and Toshiba exiting the business, emphasizing the increasing competition and search for relevance that handheld devices are facing.

David Linsalata, a Mobile Devices analyst for IDC says, "Increasing vendor, carrier, and user acceptance of converged mobile devices has led to a surge in the smart handheld device market despite a struggling pen-based handheld device market. Although pockets of growth still exist for the handheld device market, 2004 marks the first year of the converged mobile device's ascendancy to the leading spot in the overall smart handheld device market."

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