RSSAnalysts: PC growth will slow, while notebooks remain a bright spot
By Jacqueline Emigh | Published December 3, 2008, 2:27 PM
Worldwide PC growth will slow to a veritable snail's pace in 2009, according to newly revised numbers from analyst group IDC. But still, the revamped forecast for notebook PCs isn't exactly (or entirely) bleak.
In response to changes in the global economy, IDC has lowered its projections for worldwide PC growth over the next few years. Although shipments of portable PCs will step up 13.8% in 2009 to 145.9 million notebooks, overall PC shipment growth will slow to only 3.8%, with overall shipment value falling by 5.5%, according to the analyst firm.
Also for the PC market as a whole, IDC has reduced its growth outlook by a couple of percentage points for both the 2008 full year and for 2010, to 12.4% and 10.9%, respectively.
Low-cost mini-notebooks will help to buttress overall PC sales volume, acknowledged Loren Loverde, director of IDC's Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker, in this morning's statement, adding that portables will also "pressure margins and revenues."
In the US market, overall PC shipments are now expected to fall from 69.1 million in 2008 to 67.1 million in 2009. Desktop and x86 server shipments will drop from 34.4 million to 30.1 million, but portable PC shipments will rise from 34.7 million to 37.0 million, according to IDC, one of many analyst groups which has long viewed notebooks as the biggest bright spot in the US PC market, anyway.
Also as IDC sees it, emerging markets in Latin America, Central Europe, the Middle East and Asia will be among the most significantly impacted by the current economic crisis, with growth across all PC categories now lowered to 9% for 2009.
I am not surprised at this. The trend has been moving to using the laptop as a desktop replacement. Nothing earth-shattering in this story. As far as custom built, given the decline in customization of desktops, custom built is really the only way to go.
But I expect laptops to continue to dominate and grow in comparison to desktops.
Have a nice day:)
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I'm betting they're leaving out custom built PC's though, like mine[s]. I'm wondering if there is a way they could factor in custom built PC's (like CPU's or something like from Newegg).I think it would add a few more counts for desktops. I'm sure I'm not the only one building my own computers.
I still use my desktop for my main PC and my laptop if I want to bring something in a different room (like when I'm on the toilet), or if I'm traveling.
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With the dramatic price/performance enhancement offered by Nehalem/Core i7, I am wondering if more than just a few may be upgrading - especially as the lower power version for laptops becomes available - although that will not have nearly as much impact upon enterprise buying cycles...
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Did we forget what drove pc sales?
As long as game devolopers keep writing only for game consoles, this trend will continue. Even Microsoft has gone the way of xbox only releases. (Of course this may be due to the fact that nobody can get new or old games to run on Vista.)
Once XP is no longer supported, are we all going to have to switch to Linux?
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just what version of vista are you running that can't play games? What crappy dinosaur games are you playing? Seeing as most new games that are released have support for DX10 which is only on Vista, I'm confused. Please elaborate on your "facts".
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"Of course this may be due to the fact that nobody can get new or old games to run on Vista"
Oh really, am playing Grand Theft Auto 4 on Vista x64 and hope you have heard of that game. By the way am not playing that game in Linux. I even have Resident Evil 4, Hitman blood money and so many other games installed and they all run w/o any problem. Some were released before Vista and some are designed are designed for Vista LOL
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