The PC industry worldwide has seen a marginal growth in the third quarter of 2009, while emerging out of the recessionary trend which has seen a fall in its growth for the last few quarters. According to a preliminary study by research firm Gartner, the PC industry worldwide saw a 0.5 per cent increase during the quarter compared with the corresponding quarter in 2008, with a total shipment of 80.9 million units.
The highest growth came from Asia Pacific where 25.2 million units were sold, an increase of 16.1 per cent over the third quarter of 2008. The strong rebound was primarily attributed to the surge in PC shipments in China and emerging markets in South East Asia that registered strong double-digit growth rates. The PC market in China is estimated to have grown 28.5 per cent in the third quarter of 2009.
“These are good results especially given that PC shipments for the third quarter of 2009 are being compared to a very strong third quarter from 2008,” said Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner. Sequentially, the third quarter shipments grew 18 per cent, which is higher than the historical seasonal growth from the second to third quarter.
The Gartner report said the consumer market continued to lead unit shipment growth, driven by low-priced mobile PCs. “Ongoing price declines continue to be a major issue in the PC industry. PC vendor performance cannot be determined solely by unit market share gains alone as related revenues and margin performance are key to surviving in very competitive market,” Kitagawa added.
While Hewlett-Packard continued to lead the worldwide PC market, Acer overtook Dell as the number two PC brand globally with a market share of 15.4 per cent. HP and Dell had a market share of 19.9 per cent and 12.8 per cent respectively.
HP, the number one PC vendor globally, did well in Asia Pacific region, especially in China, whereas the company’s shipments declined in the Europe, West Asia and Africa (EMEA) region. However the impact was not so much visible compared to the EMEA average.PC shipments in EMEA totaled 26 million units in the third quarter of 2009, a 10.1 per cent decrease from the same period a year ago. Central Eastern Europe was the weakest area, followed by Western Europe and then West Asia and Africa. The professional market continued to be weak in both the desk-based and mobile PC segments. The mobile consumer market kept the Western Europe market buoyed and again mini-notebook share increased as most of the vendors drove higher volumes.
Similarly, in Latin America the PC shipments during the third quarter of 2009 declined by 3.9 per cent to 6.9 million even though the Gartner rep-ort estimated the pC ship-ment there to grow by 29.6 per cent in the fourth quarter. Much of this has to do with the fact that PC shipments in the fourth quarter last year were so low. However, the generally improving economic scenario in Latin America and the likely strong fourth quarter holiday sales season should also drive growth, said the report.
However, after three consecutive quarters of declines in shipment on year-on-year basis, PC shipments in the US totaled 17.8 million units in the third quarter of 2009, an increase of 3.9 per cent from the third quarter of last year.
“The consumer mobile PC market drove US shipment growth in the third quarter of 2009, fueled by back to school sales,” Kitagawa said.
“However, the results came with a revenue loss because of very steep declines in average selling prices. Consumers were comfortable buying PCs, but they were relentlessly looking for bargains. Our preliminary research shows consumer mobile PC average selling prices declined more than 20 per cent compared to a year ago.”
On the impact of the launch of Microsoft’s latest operating system, Windows 7, on the PC market, the report said, the launch would have minimal impact. “Recent OS releases have not been a growth driver in the PC market, however the timing of Windows 7’s is favorable for the industry due to expected economic improvements and an overdue hardware replacement cycle,” Kitagawa said.
