Analysts: PC sales drop in Asia for the first time in a decade
While still viewed by IDC as a "bright spot" in the overall information technology landscape, the Asia-Pacific region outside of Japan has just shown its first decline in PC sales in the past ten years.
Sales of desktop and notebook PCs in the region amounted to 17.2 million units in the last quarter of 2008, a drop of five percent from the same quarter the previous year and 14 percent from the third quarter of 2008, IDC said, in preliminary numbers released today.
As of December, the Asia-Pacific region still stood out as an IT "bright spot," with overall spending expected to rise 5.8% to $196 million despite the impact of the world financial crisis, according to a statement issued by the analyst group last month.
But although that report pointed to "bright spots" such as the services market in Asia-Pacific, analysts predicted even then that PC sales would take the biggest hit.
In another statement, issued Wednesday of last week, IDC elaborated on some of the factors behind the PC sales slide in specific countries such as China and India.
"Economic pressures had a significant impact on China and India in the fourth quarter while channel issues added to the challenges in India. Other countries in the region also faced challenges including disruptive politics and exchange rates. More cellular operators started to provide mini notebook bundles, but the results of this have been mixed and were unable to sustain shipment volume in the region," the analysts said last week.
Japan, however, turned out to be an exception, with results slightly ahead of IDC's fourth quarter projections and also ahead of third quarter growth. Although desktop PC volume declined notably, laptop sales compensated.
"The global credit crunch put some pressure on spending [in Japan], but a relatively stable economy and strong currency helped drive growth along with strong mini notebook shipments," according to IDC.
The statistics released today for the Asia Pacific outside of Japan also show Lenovo as the region's number of PC seller with an 18.3% market share, followed by Hewlett-Packard at 14.1% and Dell at 9.1%.