International
Strong demand in Europe and Asia helped to boost PC market growth by up to 17% in 2005
By Finfacts Team
Jan 19, 2006, 06:50

Strong demand for personal computers in Europe and Asia helped boost world-wide PC shipments by 16% to 17% last year, according to estimates by two US market research firms.

The market gains suggest that lower prices and preferences for notebook PCs should continue to lift sales this year.

Both IDC and Gartner projected 2006 gains should slow worldwide as corporations wind down replacement purchases. Gartner estimates 2006 shipments will climb at a 10% rate compared with 2005's 15.3% increase. Gartner said 218.5 million PCs were shipped in 2005

International market gains continue to outpace the US market. However, prices are generally lower overseas for PC makers. International shipments grew at a nearly 21% rate, compared to just 8.7% in the US in the year's final quarter, according to International Data Corp.

IDC said fourth-quarter shipments world-wide rose 17.1% over a year-ago, to 61.1 million units. It was the third consecutive quarter of better than 17% unit gains, said IDC researcher Loren Loverde.

For the first time, the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region surpassed the United States as the largest PC market, based on 2005 shipments, according to preliminary statistics by Gartner, Inc. PC shipments in EMEA totaled 72.6 million units in 2005, while PC shipments in the U.S. reached 67.2 million units (see Table 1).

"The EMEA region finished the year with a strong fourth quarter in 2005, as more than 20 million units were shipped, a 17.2 percent increase from the fourth quarter of 2004 ," said Ranjit Atwal, senior analyst for Gartner's Computing Platform Group in EMEA. "The consumer market did well in the region, especially in the mobile PC market where significant promotions in all countries led to exceptional demand."

The mobile PC market showed high growth across many regions in 2005. "Mobile growth came to some extent at the expense of desk-based PCs," said Charles Smulders, vice president of Gartner's Computing Platforms Worldwide Group. "Emerging regions had steady desk-based PC growth, however it could not offset the very weak desk-based PC growth in the mature regions."

Table 1
Preliminary Worldwide PC Unit Shipment Estimates for 2005
(Thousands of Units)

                  2005    2005 Market   2004    2004 Market  2005-2004
All Geography   Shipments   Share (%) Shipments   Share (%) Growth (%)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
EMEA               72,649       33.2    62,014        32.7       17.1
United States      67,153       30.7    62,443        32.9        7.5
Asia/Pacific       42,777       19.6    33,947        17.9       26.0
Latin America      14,711        6.7    11,671         6.2       26.0
Japan              14,662        6.7    13,635         7.2        7.5
Canada              6,583        3.0     5,829         3.1       12.9
Total             218,533      100.0   189,539       100.0       15.3
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Note: Data includes desk-based PCs, mobile PCs and X86 servers.
Source: Gartner Dataquest (January 2006)

While worldwide PC shipments increased 15.3 percent in 2005, Dell continued to grow more than the industry average, as its worldwide PC shipments grew 18.6 percent in 2005 (see Table 2). However, Dell's worldwide growth rate started to slow down in the second half of 2005. During the fourth quarter, Dell's growth slightly exceeded the worldwide average, and it gained more from overseas markets. Hewlett-Packard also did well in non-U.S. markets in the fourth quarter, but it performed a little below the U.S. average.

Table 2
Preliminary Worldwide PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for 2005
(Thousands of Units)

                   2005   2005 Market   2004   2004 Market  2005-2004
Company          Shipments  Share (%) Shipments   Share (%) Growth (%)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Dell               36,764       16.8    31,009        16.4       18.6
Hewlett-Packard    31,792       14.5    27,623        14.6       15.1
Lenovo             15,054        6.9    12,937         6.8       16.4
Acer               10,154        4.6     6,425         3.4       58.1
Fujitsu/Fujitsu
  Siemens           8,326        3.8     7,144         3.8       16.5
Others            116,443       53.3   104,401        55.1       11.5
Total             218,533     100.00   189,539       100.0       15.3
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Note: Data includes desk-based PCs, mobile PCs and X86 servers.
Source: Gartner Dataquest (January 2006)

In the United States, fourth quarter results confirmed that the U.S. professional market replacement cycle has peaked. "Both small and midsize business (SMB) and enterprise markets showed softness in demand," said Mika Kitagawa, principal analyst in Gartner's Computing Platforms Worldwide Group. "This slow down was mainly driven by poor desk-based PC sales. Professional mobile PC growth was very steady, especially in the SMB market."

In the Asia/Pacific region, China, South Korea and India continued to perform well in the fourth quarter. China had strong demand in the professional segment due to fiscal year-end spending, while in the consumer market, leading vendors had some success in their winter promotion programs. In India, PC sales are expanding beyond the major cities.

In Latin America, desk-based PC shipments grew 20 percent in the fourth quarter, while notebook shipments grew 51 percent. The consumer market grew by 25 percent, while consumer notebooks surpassed 112 percent growth.

PC shipments in Japan appear modest for the fourth quarter, however many of the new PCs targeted for the winter bonus shopping season had been shipped in September instead of the fourth quarter. As more vendors started shipping their mainstream models in September, this limited fourth quarter shipment growth to the high single digits, while the third quarter posted 18.4 percent growth.

Both IDC and Gartner project 2006 market gains should slow worldwide as corporations wind down replacement purchases. Gartner estimates 2006 shipments will climb at a 10% rate compared with 2005's 15.3% increase. Gartner said 218.5 million PCs were shipped in 2005.