PC market booms because of notebooks

RESEARCH FIRM ISUPPLI said it's upgraded its estimate of PC sales during 2007 because notebooks are selling far better than it previously expected.

Said Matthew Wilkins, principal analyst at the firm: "Notebook PC shipments rose to 21.8 million units in the first quarter of 2007, up 23 per cent from 17.7 million in the first quarter of 2006."

The introduction of Intel Santa Rosa notebooks this calendar quarter could have caused buyers to delay putting their hands into their pockets. But it didn't, said Wilkins.

During 2007, he said, he expects notebooks to account for a staggering 40 per cent of shipments during this year.

This is how Isuppli views the notebook/desktop cookie crumbling between 2005 and now. These figures are worldwide PC shipment percentage growth forecast by platform.

	2005	2006	2007
Notebooks	35.9%	28.4%	25.3%
Desktops	7.7%	0.8%	3.9%

Oddly, desktops, according to these figures, grew by only 0.8 per cent of shipments last year. µ

L'INQ
Isuppli