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New data from IDC says that PC shipments declined 1.5 percent in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) in the first three months of 2002.
According to IDC, the market for PCs is showing limited signs of recovery, but savage competition among vendors remained fierce in Q1 2002 keeping prices down. Moreover corporate investments remained cautious, affecting both desktop and notebook sales.
The consumer market remained soft as well, IDC said, and no major rebound is expected before the second half of the year. But there was a bright spot in the notebook market, which is continuing to boom thanks to the strong competition among vendors and retailers who are selling computers at low prices.
In fact the notebook market grew over 13 percent in the first quarter in EMEA with drive coming from small business as well as from consumers. "Intense competition on specification and price, and the introduction of Pentium 4 onto the mobile platform in Europe, contributed to drive sales," explained Andy Brown, research manager for EMEA Mobile Computing at IDC.
Compared to last year at this time, PC sales in Western Europe were down 5.1 percent and the lack of a corporate rebound in Europe's three largest economies continued to prevent a return to positive growth as companies hesitate to spend cash on non-essential technologies. But Eastern Europe recorded excellent growth at 10.9 percent and the Middle East and Africa region also showed strong recovery with 20.4 percent growth year on year.
"This year will be another tough year for the PC industry," said Karine Paoli, IDC's EMEA personal computing expertise center manager. "As corporate demand is expected to remain constrained by the current market conditions, and as there is little hope for a major rebound in the desktop consumer marketplace before the end of the year."
In terms of the different PC makers themselves, the top five vendors, IBM, Dell, Fujitsu-Siemens, Compaq and HP, captured 50 percent of total EMEA sales.
Compaq dominated the overall PC market in EMEA driven by its success in the notebook sector. Compaq shipped over 1.3 million units in the quarter and held 14.5 percent of the market, but shipments were down almost eight percent over last year. Dell however saw its unit shipment climb by over eight percent, to more than 1 million, to capture 11.2 percent of the market.
HP also saw its shipments go up by almost three percent to 855,000, or 9.4 percent of the market. Fujitsu Siemens and IBM came in fourth and fifth place with 8.7 percent and 5.6 percent of the market respectively.
The remaining computer makers, Acer, NEC CI, Toshiba, Apple, and Vobis ranked sixth through tenth in that order.
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