By Paul Kunert
5 August 2008
PC vendors have used price cutting strategies to artificially sustain demand in the current climate but it will become increasingly difficult for companies to pursue that model analyst Gartner has warned.
UK data released by Gartner today showed PC shipments during the second quarter rose 27.4 per cent to 2.7m units but revenues grew only 2 per cent to £1.18bn, as average sales prices collapsed 20 per cent.
Client devices were an integral part of every day life at home and at work said Ranjit Atwal, principal analyst at Gartner but vendors had continued to slash notebook prices to ensure that sales did not flater.
“Part of the price decline can be attributed to the exchange rate but there have also been significant reductions from vendors,” he told Microscope, “going forward it will be more difficult for vendors to continue [with the same strategy].”
Sales of notebooks in the consumer and professional space grew 75 and 50 per cent respectively but there were no surprises that desktop sales declined on both fronts; 15 per cent in retail and 4 per cent in business.
Notebook ASPs fell 25 per cent while desktop prices suffered to a lesser degree with drops of 15 and 10 per cent in the professional and consumer segments.
On the vendor front, Dell grew 21 per cent to hold 23 per cent market share while HP and Acer grew 42 and 17 per cent respectively handing them each a 21 and 15 per cent slice of the UK PC market.
Toshiba and Apple grew 47 and 40 per cent respectively placing them in fourth and fifth position with 9 and 4.2 per cent share.
Fujitsu Siemens Computers dropped to tenth, with 2.5 per cent market share – behind ASUS, Lenovo, Sony and DGSi – after sales declined 21 per cent during the quarter.
