PC market returns to growth; better times ahead

Stephen Withers
Friday, 18 December 2009 07:46

Your IT - Home IT

PC shipments have finally returned to growth, according to figures from IDC. And Apple is outperforming the market.

After three quarters of decline, IDC has reported 2.3% growth in worldwide PC shipments for the third quarter of 2009.

The company now predicts total PC shipments for 2009 will be slightly up on 2008, with a return to strong growth in 2010 that will last at least to 2013.

But the recovery - such that it is so far - isn't evenly spread.

IDC's predicting a permanent shift away from desktop models, with sales having already peaked for the foreseeable future.

The worldwide mix for 2008 was 144.9 million desktops, and 142.7 million portables for a total of 287.6 million units.

For 2009, IDC is estimating 126.2 million desktops and 165.2 million portables, ie 291.4 million units overall.

That means a 1.3% increase in total units, but a 15.8% lift in portable units.

Many of those portable units were mini notebooks (including netbooks) - that category grew by 37% from 2Q09 to 3Q09, and doubled its share of the consumer portable market from 14% in 3Q08 to 28% in 3Q09.

While prospects for that hardware segment appear limited, commercial purchases are set to boom - see page 2.