The Palm handheld platform continued to dominate the handheld arena in February, but Palm-branded handhelds lost ground to competitors including, for the first time, Sony, according to market research firm NPD Intelect.

Overall, handhelds based on the Palm platform accounted for 86 percent of all handheld sales, according to the report. The Palm platform has held about that level of market share consistently for more than a year although Palm-based products from vendors such as Handspring have taken unit share away from Palm-branded handhelds.

For instance, Palm-branded handhelds accounted for about 80 percent of the market about a year ago, but now account for only 64.4 percent. The Palm-based Sony Clie broke into the top five for the first time in February, notching a two percent market share.

The report covers the retail channel, not direct sales. According to the study company, Unit shares for handhelds in February were:

Brand (Platform)	% Unit Sales
Palm (Palm)	64.4
Handspring (Palm)	19.6
Casio (Pocket PC)	6.1
Hewlett Packard (Pocket PC)	3.7
Sony (Palm)	2.0

Source: NPD INTELECT Market Tracking

Missing from the list are Pocket PC handhelds from Compaq, which are sold largely via direct sales, not through the retail channel. Speculatively, adding Compaq sales would put market share for the Pocket PC platform over 10 percent. Despite losing market share, dramatically increasing sales of handhelds overall have led to a continuing increase in revenues for Palm, it said recently.

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