Worldwide PC sales saw a huge leap during the fourth quarter of 2009, according to new figures from analyst house Gartner. Shipments passed 90 million and saw the strongest quarter-on-quarter growth rate for seven years.
Although Gartner says that the figures mean that the PC market is showing signs of recovery, it also points out that the fourth quarter of 2008 was very weak as consumers and businesses stopped spending during the recession.
“There are definitely signs of a recovery in the market,” Gartner analyst Ranjit Atwal told CBR. “The figures are optimistic and we expect the growth to continue throughout 2010, driven by consumer growth.”
Atwal also told CBR that the enterprise is yet to see an upward turn in PC buying, but that 2010 could well change that. “It’s too early at the moment for businesses,” he said. “The upward turn is likely to come at the end of 2010 as companies embrace Windows 7 in a big way. It’s not yet had a big impact on the enterprise space but given that a lot of companies have held off replacing PCs and lots are still on XP, we expect the end of 2010 and 2011 to be big.”
Rival analyst firm Forrester recently declared that the downturn in IT spending over the last couple of years was, “officially over”. Gartner agrees with this and Atwal said that this year should show an increase in IT spending. “As we exit the recession, we expect companies to start spending on IT again, particularly on the hardware side,” he said.
Atwal said that aggressive marketing strategies from the likes of HP and Toshiba in the run up to the busy Christmas period helped drive consumer growth as companies looked to improve their market position or retain their lead over rivals.
HP maintained the top position in worldwide PC shipments in the fourth quarter of 2009, ahead of Acer and Dell. The firm was boosted by a strong performance in the US, where it regained top spot from Dell. HP was also top of the pile in EMEA as the region finally saw upward growth. Atwal said that it was the last major region across the world to do so.
Growth in the consumer market was driven by rapid adoption of notebooks and netbooks, as people looked for low-cost computing.
Figures from another analyst firm, IDC, also revealed signs of recovery in the PC market. PC sales during the October to December period jumped 15.2%, prompting the firm to join Gartner and Forrester in declaring the worst of the recession over for the tech industry.
The market has weathered a storm which looks to be behind us,” says Jay Chou, research analyst, Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker. “But salvaging decreasing margins will soon become even more pertinent as one considers the long-term effects of holding market share at the cost of profitability.”
