By Paul Kunert
21 November 2008
The channel should brace itself for a rough ride in the UK PC market next year after IDC downgraded their forecasts for unit growth next year and warned that revenues will fall sharply.
The market watcher expects a 3% rise in shipments next year to 13.6 million units, down from the 13% it initially forecast. On the revenue front, IDC had predicted a drop of 2% but now reckons the value of the market will decline 13% to €7.2bn.
The economic situation has deteriorated rapidly and Ezster Morvay, IDC senior analyst expected vendors to use price as a competitive tool. “Pricing will continue to fall sharply, we are forecasting a 16% drop in average sales prices (ASPs)”.
“Demand levels are much softer so vendors are going to be pushing more aggressive deals in the retail and reseller channels to stimulate demand,” she said, adding the advent of the mini PC was also lowering revenues forecasts.
Desktop sales are to decline 15%, ASPs will drop 9% and as a result revenues are earmarked to plummet 23% to €2bn.
The outlook for notebook unit sales, initially expected to rise 41%, is more conservative at 13% and with a 13% decline in ASPs revenues are estimated to fall 8% year-on-year to €5.2bn.
The outlook globally has also worsened said Gartner, which has expects 5% rise in shipments to 300 million units and a 4% decline in revenues to $240bn. Worst case scenario, the analyst said unit sales will fall 2% and the market’s value will drop 10%.
“The speed of the fall in GDP across mature economies has been so dramatic,” said Ranjit Atwal, principal analyst at Gartner.
“The professional market is battening down the hatches and the easiest way to do that is cut hardware spending. In the consumer market there is complete uncertainty,” he added.
Market watcher iSuppli has also slashed its 2009 global forecast by nearly two thirds and reckons that sales will go 4.3% compared to its earlier expectation of 11.9%.
“Since iSuppli published its last worldwide forecast the landscape of the global economy has changed dramatically, and in many ways irrevocably,” said Mathew Wilkins, principal analyst for compute platforms at the researcher.
