UK PC market doing well despite economic woes
Despite the domestic and global economic slowdown, PC sales in the UK totalled 3.1 million units in the first quarter of 2008. This is an increase of 11.2 per cent compared with the same period in 2007, according to a new report by Gartner.
They have concluded that the decline in pricing has “helped outweigh any negative influences” driven by economic concerns in the first quarter of 2008.
“While the PC market is not immune to an economic downturn, continued strong mobile penetration helps to sustain robust growth,” said Ranjit Atwal, Principal Analyst at Gartner.
PC shipments in Western Europe totalled 15.2 million units in the first quarter of 2008, an increase of 14.1 per cent compared with the same period in 2007.
The shift in exchange rates between the dollar and the euro has allowed vendors to reduce average selling prices much faster than expected, according to the Gartner report.
The UK market was driven by strong mobile PC sales, which accounted for more than 60 per cent of total PC shipments and nearly 70 per cent of consumer PCs.
Mobile PCs saw volumes increase by nearly 40 per cent compared with the first quarter of 2007. The desktop market declined in the consumer and professional markets by more than 15 per cent year on year.
Dell and HP continued to dominate the UK market with a combined share of more than 45 per cent. Dell, who has finally entered the retail channel via Dixons and Tesco, saw a 200 per cent increase in consumer mobile PC over this period.
HP managed to drive consumer and professional mobile PC shipments growth, achieving nearly 70 per cent overall growth.
“The IT sector – be it in employment or in PC sales - seems to be bucking the downward trend of the economy at the moment,” says Derrick Cameron, MD of IT firm Eximium. “This shows just how important the IT sector is to the economy: both in the area of the home PC or in the IT department, we are increasingly dependant on it for our work and leisure time.”
“The UK PC market performed above expectations in the first quarter of 2008. The impact of an economic slowdown and the credit crunch has not affected the PC market yet,” concluded Atwal.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 29th, 2008 at 10:46 am and is filed under Business Advice, IT Advice, News . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
