Gartner: PC market showing signs of warming, but still volatile

The Australian PC market has picked up in the April to June period rising 11.3 per cent over Q1, according to analyst firm, Gartner.

The rebound comes after a significant downturn in the market during the January to March quarter and is entirely in line with IDC predictions made in late July.

Gartner research analyst, Eileen He, said while Q2 figures were down year on year by 2.9 per cent, the quarter on quarter results showed the economy was warming up.

“The general economy improved in the last quarter, and that’s why the sequential growth rate was positive compared to the previous quarter,” she said.

The analyst said the growth of notebooks and decline of desktop computers was continuing, but added that the hesitation of enterprise customers to update their PCs is acting as a drag on the market.

“Enterprise users haven’t put too much of their budget into PC replacement. When the economy improves, most of them will still buy desktops,” she said. “The maintenance cost for desktop PCs is still lower than mobile PCs. They have more experience and skill in maintaining desktops.”

While He predicts Q3 2009 will return positive quarter on quarter results for PC sales thanks to strong consumer demand, she said the economy will remain volatile.

“We forecast that the PC market will not stabilise until at least 2011. So far we still see that spending from enterprise is fairly tight while consumer confidence has not fully come back,” she said.

“After 2011 we will see the normal sequential growth rate for every quarter.”

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