A Gartner report found global PC sales surged 8.9 per cent to total 67 million units in the fourth quarter. IDC put growth at 10.9 per cent to 58.9 million units, far exceeding its forecast of 8.5 per cent.
As a bell-weather, the industry has traditionally looked to the PC shipment reports to understand the underlying health pf the ICT sector, as well as a reliable indicator of the strength or otherwise of economic investment.’
IDC said it expected strong growth would continue for the next two years.
IDC found growth was stronger in the portable PC market than the desktop commercial PC space.
“The strong first quarter is a good indicator of the health of the industry,” said IDC's Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker director Loren Loverde.
“The United States and Japan didn't grow much in the first quarter, but solid gains elsewhere and a boost from Vista brought us back to double-digit growth,” she said.
“The key market drivers – portable adoption and consumer demand – continue at a healthy clip, and commercial replacements should contribute more in coming quarters.
“Growth is likely to stay in double-digits over the next two years although it will be concentrated in portables and international markets.”
Gartner said the Asia Pacific region overtook the US in total shipment volumes for the first time in the first quarter.
HP capitalised on the strong growth in the consumer and portables market, boosting its own unit shipments by 28 per cent for the quarter and growing its market share to 19.1 per cent.
Dell has continued to struggle with a slow US market and a current internal restructure. Overall shipments for the year declined 6.9 per cent, though it did manage to boost non-US sales.
Both research groups said the launch of Microsoft Vista operating system in January would have had very small impact on the growth of global PC shipments.
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