Research In Motion enjoyed stellar sales of its BlackBerry devices in 2005 despite the combination of legal patent woes and Microsoft's attempt to muscle in on its push email territory.

Analyst firm Gartner identified RIM as the number one PDA vendor based on worldwide shipments in 2005 with 21.4 per cent of the market. BlackBerry shipments in 2005 increased 47 per cent from 2004.

These results do not include an estimated 858,000 BlackBerry smartphones shipped in 2005, which Gartner classifies separately because of their voice-centric design.

Overall global shipments of data-centric PDAs totalled a record 14.9 million units in 2005, a 19 per cent increase from 2004, according to new research from Gartner. The 2005 results pipped the previous record of 13.2 million PDAs shipped worldwide in 2001.

"RIM does not appear to be losing much momentum despite its legal problems and the threat of an injunction," said Todd Kort, principal analyst in Gartner's Computing Platforms Worldwide group.

"Generally, BlackBerry users are staying put because of the high cost of switching, lack of suitable alternative devices, and the low probability of the BlackBerry service being shut down."