Framingham, MA, Nov. 5 - Intense competition from converged mobile devices that perform basic personal information management tasks are stealing market share from handheld devices, says market research firm IDC.

Third quarter sales of handhelds fell 4.6% sequentially and 8.7% year-on-year, to 2.1 million units.

Market success will go to those that extend handheld devices into markets beyond core PIM functionality, such as GPS bundles, IDC said.