Shipments of PCs rise 15% globally

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/01/19/business/pcsales.php

Shipments of PCs rise 15% globally
Reuters

THURSDAY, JANUARY 19, 2006

AMSTERDAM Global shipments of personal computers rose 15.3 percent in 2005, with Dell extending its lead over Hewlett-Packard and Europe overtaking the United States as the largest market, according to preliminary data released on Thursday.

Worldwide sales of personal computers rose to 218.5 million units in 2005 from 189.5 million in 2004, according to the data, which came from Gartner, the market research group.

Shipments in Europe, the Middle East and Africa rose 17.1 percent, to 72.7 million units, overtaking the United States, which rose 7.5 percent, to 67 million. In 2004, the United States still slightly exceeded Europe, both regions taking about 62 million units.

The fastest growth in 2005 was in Asia Pacific and Latin America, where unit sales increased 26 percent, to 42.8 million and 14.7 million, respectively.

Dell continued to grow at more than the industry average. Its worldwide PC shipments grew 18.6 percent in 2005. Its global market share ended at 16.8 percent, up from 16.4 percent.

"However, Dell's worldwide growth rate started to slow down in the second half of 2005," Gartner said in a statement. "During the fourth quarter, Dell's growth slightly exceeded the worldwide average, and it gained more from overseas markets."

Hewlett-Packard, the world's No. 2 computer company, lost a little bit of ground to its closest rivals as its market share slipped to 14.5 percent in 2005 from 14.6 percent in 2004.

The No. 3, Lenovo, which is based in and has acquired IBM's PC business, increased its market share to 6.9 percent from 6.8 percent. Acer, based in Taiwan, expanded to 4.6 percent market share from 3.4 percent in 2004. Fujitsu and Fujitsu-Siemens remained steady at 3.8 percent, and were overtaken by Acer.

In the United States, fourth-quarter results confirmed that the U.S. professional market replacement cycle had peaked. "Both small and midsize business and enterprise markets showed softness in demand," said Mika Kitagawa, a Gartner analyst.

In general, shipments of portable computers were growing fast and desktop computers were not, and Gartner said many shipped PCs were still sitting in warehouses.

"Concerns over inventory continue to exist," it said. "With the exception of Hewlett-Packard, all the vendors increased their average days of inventory over 2004."