PC sales struggle
In the fourth quarter of 2008 the worldwide PC industry suffered its worst growth rate since 2002, says IT analyst Gartner. The company says that worldwide shipments of PCs totalled 78.1 million units, a marginal 1.1% increase from the fourth quarter of 2007.
"The United States experienced steeper than expected shipment declines due to the recession. The Europe, Middle East and Africa region was also affected by the economic slow down across key countries," said Mika Kitagawa, principal analyst for Gartner’s client computing markets group.
"Asia/Pacific recorded the worst shipment growth since Gartner started its PC statistics research. Latin America met expectations, but its growth was much lower than in the past."
Netbook growth
The growth driver for the 2008 holiday PC season was the mini-notebook segment, says Gartner. With more vendors offering creative sales promotions, the mini-notebook segment outpaced overall mobile PC growth.
Hewlett-Packard, which topped global PC sales, managed to grow above the worldwide average in the fourth quarter of 2008 when compared with the final quarter of 2007. Dell and Lenovo, however, showed negative growth for the period.
The standout in the period was Acer which capitalised on the robust netbook sector and returned fourth quarter sales more th 30% higher than the corresponding 2007 quarter.
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