PC Shipments Dropping

By Greg McNevin

January 22, 2009: Preliminary reports from the analysts at IDC show that the financial crisis is beginning to make its presence felt in the PC hardware sector, with PC shipments in Asia/Pacific contracting for the first time in ten years during Q4, 2008.

The company says that the Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) client PC market fell 14 percent sequentially and five percent year-on-year to reach 17.2 million units in Q4 last year - the first year-on-year decline in the region since Q3, 1998 when the region was suffering from the Asian Financial Crisis.

IDC says that key markets like China did not exhibit as much domestic demand as initially expected, thus dragging the regional market below forecasts by 13 percent. Furthermore, the firm adds that a barrage of dismal global economic news over the course of the fourth quarter further impacted market sentiment and escalated cautiousness across the region.

“This quarter was quite a jaw-dropper – not just in China, but also in India where economic and channel issues really took their toll,” says Bryan Ma, Director of Asia/Pacific Personal Systems Research at IDC. “The clouds are darkening in 2009, although there might be some pockets of shelter in the region's public sector.”

For all of 2008, IDC claims that the region grew only nine percent compared to a hefty 22 percent the previous year, with 2001 being the last time the region posted such a growth rate. Still, 2008’s nine percent was still better than the all-time-low of zero percent in 1998, while many countries in the region still posted double-digit growth in 2008.

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