PC shipments increased 2.6% but fell short of May projections of 2.9% in the second quarter of 2011 due to competition from smartphones, other consumer products and lackluster economic conditions, as per the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker.
As in Q1 2011, emerging regions – particularly Latin America and Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) – fared better, while the US and Europe, Middle East, Africa (EMEA) (particularly in Western Europe) witnessed constrained demand.
However, Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and the Middle East and Africa (MEA) continued to expand and enjoyed positive growth overall.
In Japan, the impact of the earthquake on PC buying proved to be limited, thus the market produced stronger results than expected, with 3% growth.
IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker senior research analyst Jay Chou said product refreshes and promotions in the second half of the year as well as easier year-ago data should boost growth in the second half of the year.
The US Quarterly PC Tracker research analyst Rajani Singh said the US PC market continued to contract in 2Q11, largely as a result of three factors.
"The first is an ongoing contraction in the Mini Notebook (Netbook) market and related inventories. The second is the impact of 2Q10’s difficult-to-sustain 12% growth," Singh said.
"And third, demand has softened as corporate buyers continue to focus on increasing share of their IT budget in new IT solutions such as cloud and virtualization, and consumer interest shifts to media tablets.
"Given the weakness of 2H10, we expect a better market environment in 2H11 with mid-single digit growth rates in the third quarter’s back to school and fourth quarter’s holiday season."
