Hand-Held Shipments Slip in Second Quarter

Second-quarter worldwide shipments of hand-held computers fell 3.5% from a year ag, to 2.71 million units, as a lack of new models from market leaders Palm Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. hampered sales, market research firm Gartner Dataquest said. Total sales rose 1.5% to $901.6 million.

Hewlett-Packard, which acquired Compaq Computer Corp. this year and sells more expensive models, overtook Palm as the market leader in sales of personal digital assistants, or PDAs.

Palm retained the lead in units shipped, with a 30% share, followed by Hewlett-Packard with 16% and Sony with 10%.

In sales, Hewlett-Packard edged Palm 24.4% to 24.1%. Sony had a 9.7% share, Toshiba 4.9% and Handspring Inc. 4.5%.