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Christmas projection isn't bright for PC market
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Monday, November 18, 2002
Dell Computer Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co. won't have a very green holiday this year, according to a Gartner Dataquest report released today.
The market researcher estimated worldwide PC shipments will reach 35.1 million units in Q4. While that's a 1.5 percent increase from the same period last year, it's hardly the traditional holiday spike PC makers are used to.
"The gloomy economic situation is likely to affect U.S. and Japan holiday season purchases," said George Shiffler, principal analyst for Dataquest's computing platforms and economics research, in a statement. "Given that home PC penetration is relatively high in the world's developed economies, limited funds may induce users to extend the life of their PCs. Many families may also choose other devices such as game consoles, DVD players and digital cameras instead of upgrading their old PCs."
Charles Smulders, VP for Dataquest's computing platforms worldwide group, added that there's also a lack of compelling technologies that will inspire consumers to purchase a PC this holiday season. "Rewriteable DVD prices are anticipated to fall, but the ongoing battles between rewriteable DVD drive formats (DVD-RW or DVD+RW) continue. Uncertainty over the outcome of this format war is at least partially likely to undermine the effect of lower drive prices."
In total, the worldwide PC industry's shipments should reach 127.3 million units in 2002, a 1.8 percent increase over 2001 shipments, Dataquest said. Single-digit growth will continue into 2003 with an estimated 7 percent increase.
"On a regional basis, the U.S. economy has clearly bottomed out, and it remains weak and hesitant," Shiffler said. "Japan and Western Europe appear to be backsliding and war jitters have upped the price of oil."
While the need to upgrade aging PCs will continue to grow, users are choosing to extend the life of PCs in light of weak incentives to upgrade and the economy, Dataquest said.
"PC vendors should plan for a less-pronounced replacement cycle than previously projected because of the extension of PC life cycles in the installed base," Smulders said. "PC users or purchase decision makers should carefully assess the positive issues, such as cost savings, versus the negative effects, such as productivity loss, of extending PC life cycles."
By: DocMemory
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