PC Sales Growth Will Decline This Year, Gartner Says, But Mobile-System Growth Will Exceed Earlier Projections
3/9/2006
Source: VARBusiness
http://www.varbusiness.com/sections/news/breakingnews.jhtml?...
By Jeffrey Schwartz
Worldwide PC unit-shipment growth will decline markedly this year over 2005, though mobile-system growth will exceed earlier projections, market research firm Gartner said today.
Gartner is forecasting that PC shipments will grow to 234.5 million units, a 10.7 percent increase over last year, when sales increased 15.5 percent. Growth will be especially stymied in mature markets, such as the United States and Europe, where desktop shipments are expected to decrease 8.6 percent. That’s in stark contrast to emerging markets, which will increase nearly 20 percent this year.
“We expect to see a fall-off in both the home and professional markets over the next year,” says George Shiffler, a Gartner research director. “We're at the end of the desktop-replacement cycle.”
The bright areas remains mobile PC sales, which will grow 22.1 percent in mature markets and 38.7 percent in emerging regions—accounting for an aggregate of 31.4 percent overall.
“Thanks to pricing and innovation in the form factor and battery life, mobile PCs are appealing to a wider ranger of users,” Shiffler says. Despite the strong prognosis of mobile-systems growth, it will not be enough to account for the slowdown in desktop systems, he adds. Shiffler declined to say whether a price war is in the offing, citing company policy against making such predictions. But he did note uncertainties that are impacting growth are the anticipated arrival of Microsoft's Windows Vista, due out by year’s end, which will be the vendor's first major desktop operating system since the release of Windows XP in 2001.
The potential wild card, Shiffler adds, is when Vista will ship. If it comes out too late in the year, it will miss the key holiday-buying season in the fourth quarter.