oUr miSsion is oUr sTaTeMeNt
|
|
|
PC shipments decline by 6.5 per cent in the fourth quarter
PC SHIPMENTS in the fourth quarter declined by 6.5 per cent, according to IDC, as consumers chose to buy devices such as tablets instead.
IDC said PC shipments in the EMEA region fell to 103 million units for the full year 2011, a seven per cent decline from 2010.
Consumer portable PC shipments declined 15.4 per cent in Q4 2011, due to a sharp 48.8 per cent drop in mini-notebook sales, while mainstream notebooks declined by 3.1 per cent.
However, IDC said the shortage of hard disk drive (HDD) supply had a limited impact in the quarter, as products destined to be sold to consumers in the pre-Christmas period are built and shipped by sea by mid-November using inventory that was manufactured prior to the flooding.
It added that the commercial share of air shipments is higher, therefore the lack of sufficient HDD supply could have had a bigger impact, but "vendors prioritised higher-margin commercial SKUs versus consumer models".
HP maintained the top vendor slot in EMEA, with healthy growth in the consumer notebook market again, having successfully restored its inventory balance across the region in Q4 2011.
Acer remained in second place despite posting the fifth consecutive quarter of double-digit declines. Dell regained the third place it lost to Asus the previous quarter, thanks to strong growth in EMEA, where the vendor won several public sector deals, and Asus slipped to fourth place despite posting healthy double-digit growth.
Lenovo maintained fifth place, reporting strong double-digit growth and consolidating market share in EMEA.
Meanwhile, Toshiba regained in sixth place in the overall EMEA rankings despite a sharp drop in Central Europe and weak results in Western Europe. Samsung reported its first decline in five years, due to a sharp drop in Western Europe, where results were impacted by slowing notebook sales and waning mini-notebook demand.
Not surprisingly, Apple maintained healthy growth, particularly in the consumer segment. µ
Share this:
Share
Perhaps the loss of 100 MILLION jobs in the past three years is the real reason for the drop in PC sales.
HD prices from unscrupulous vendors might have had a micro impact on sales - like .00000000000001%, but no vendors ran out of drives they just screwed consumers - and continue to screw consumers for as long as people are dumb enough to keep paying the inflated prices since the typhoon.
When people stop paying blackmail, the prices on HDs will drop back to reality.
The drop in PC shipments was NOT due to the tablets. If anything, people who buy tablets are more likely to buy PCs too. For example if you like to watch movies on a tablet and you have a lot of DVDs at home, you can use a PC to bring the movies from DVD to the tablet.
The drop in PC shipments was due to the huge hike in HDD prices. I bought a 2TB WD Caviar Black for $140 and a 2TB external WD drive for $150, and a few months later the flood happened and they were both over $200. I was planning to buy myself a neat new PC with 6 Caviar 2TB drives in it, but I just didn't feel like it at the new prices. I'll buy it in a few months, when the drive I want is back to $140. Heck, without the floods, it would have been close to $100 by now.
Assuming there are lots who think like me, I guess INTC/AMD/NVDA and the rest will suffer a bit in the short term, but will see a surge in sales once WD and Seagate get back to normal. It actually works well for me, because now I get to upgrade to Z77 and some Ivy Bridge with 6 cores and a GTX 680 :)