PC Shipments Grow By 11 Percent
PC Shipments Grow By 11 Percent
July 24th, 2006: Lower prices have driven an increase in worldwide PC shipments says Gartner.
Pushed ahead by price cuts, PC shipments totalled 54.9 million units worldwide last quarter. The figure is an 11 percent increase from the same period in 2005, according to research organisation Gartner.
Central Processing Unit (CPU) inventory clearance activity by Intel, and generally more aggressive pricing by Intel and AMD attributed to lower prices in the quarter. The top five vendors were responsible for nearly 50 percent of the worldwide PC market, with Dell maintaining the top spot.
“On a worldwide basis, large vendors continued to gain share at the expense of mid-tier vendors and system builders”, said Charles Smulders, vice president of Gartner’s Client Computing Group. “The price cuts during the quarter undoubtedly helped the large vendors, as they were able to put more pricing pressure on the smaller players. Intel’s accelerated ramp on its new CPU lines will expose those vendors who have not invested enough in tools and processes to manage their supply chain”.
Apple has also reported strong growth in the last quarter. The company shipped 1,327,000 Macintosh computers and 8,111,000 iPods, representing a year-over-year growth of 12 percent and 32 percent, respectively.