PC market remains dependent on enterprise sales

Worldwide PC shipments rose by three per cent to 93.5 million units in the fourth quarter of 2010, despite rising competition from tablets, according to figures from Gartner.

The PC market in EMEA recorded a strong first half but a weak second half, resulting in year-on-year growth of 13.3 per cent.

Gartner put this down to the cautious economic climate, vendors' limited ability to reduce PC prices and the increased introduction of competitive devices such as tablets and smartphones.

Enterprise demand for PCs picked up in the fourth quarter as businesses looked to replace desktops and migrate to Windows 7, explained Ranjit Atwal, a research director at Gartner.

"Earlier in the year exchange rates were high and many businesses were waiting for the opportune moment to invest in equipment," he told V3.co.uk.

"Some enterprises may have found budgets at the end of the year that had not been used, which explains the increase in the fourth quarter.

"We forecast the PC market to experience double-digit growth over the coming year, but this is dependent on the professional market replacing laptops, which did not happen in 2010."

The PC market will continue to face strong competition from portable devices such as tablets and smartphones. Added to this, consumers can expect to get five to six years out of a desktop and around three years from a laptop, Atwal said.

HP maintained it position as the top vendor in EMEA, experiencing solid growth in its professional business division. The company retained a 20.3 per cent share of the market, followed by closely by Acer with 20.1 per cent. Dell, Asus and Lenovo rounded out the top five with single digit market shares.

Acer faced challenges in the fourth quarter after a slowdown in the overall consumer mobile PC market, and did not benefit as enterprises refreshed products owing to a lower presence in the professional PC market.

Conversely, Dell's weaker presence in the consumer segment meant that the company was not as affected as its competitors during the poor Christmas period.

Lenovo had the strongest year-on-year growth among the top five vendors, benefitting from replacement purchases in the professional PC market and its ongoing efforts in the consumer market.

Gartner's findings tally with IDC's latest research, which also suggested that tablet sales could eat into the PC market.