According to a report released today by analyst firm Research and Markets, the global market for PDAs totaled $1.77 billion in 2003, and will grow to around $3 billion over the next five years. The data comes from the firm's newly released report, “Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) Market Opportunities, Strategies, and Forecasts, 2004 to 2009.”

The report observes that high-end PDAs are evolving into wireless communicators with the ability to connect to the Internet, and suggests that sales of PDAs without communication capabilities are likely to be flat or decline, despite lower prices.

The report notes that economies of scale favor wireless handsets, with a current installed base of some 1.2 billion units, in contrast to PDAs, which have a mere 31 million unit installed base. Additionally, wireless handsets are starting to gain PDA functionality in order to be useful for communicating data — another factor diminishing the growth of the traditional PDA market.

More information on this report is available here.

 
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