Shipments of personal computers in the Asia-Pacific region, excluding Japan, expanded in the second quarter. Shipments grew 10 percent quarter-on-quarter and 13 percent year-on-year to 30.1 million units as the region returned to double-digit growth, despite ongoing inflation challenges, according to market research firm International Data Corp’s (IDC) preliminary results.
“Inflation and channel inventory are thorns in the side of many countries here in Asia,” Bryan Ma (馬伯遠), associate vice president for client devices research at IDC Asia-Pacific, said in an e-mailed statement released on Wednesday.
“Fortunately, the market is continuing to move ahead despite these challenges, boosting confidence that the region will still post double-digit growth in the upcoming years,” he added.
The annual shipment growth of 13 percent in the Asia-Pacific region in the second quarter was stronger than the 2.6 percent rise in global shipments in the quarter, driven mainly by robust demand in China and Indonesia, according to IDC.
India, however, bucked the trend as inflation continued to hurt consumer-buying sentiment in the country, the Framingham, Massachusetts-based market research house said.
In this region, Lenovo Group Ltd (聯想), China’s biggest PC maker, saw its PC shipments increase 24 percent from a year earlier to hold the largest market share — 22.5 percent — in the second quarter, up from its 19 percent share in the first quarter. The company’s market share also surged in China because of its ongoing expansion into lower-tier cities, IDC said.
Acer Inc (宏碁) — which saw its global shipments fall 25.4 percent in the second quarter from a year ago, as the company was affected by a review of inventory and uncertainties from its recent management shake-up — posted a 62 percent surge in Asia-Pacific shipments, the largest among major PC vendors, boosting the Taiwanese firm to second place in the region with a 11.9 percent market share, up from 10.2 percent in the first quarter, the data showed.
IDC attributed Acer’s increased market share and shipments to the company’s efforts to sort out its integration issues with Founder Group (北大方正集團) in China, after Acer announced in August it would team up with the Shanghai-based company to strengthen its foothold there.
However, Hewlett-Packard Co (HP), the world’s largest PC brand, experienced challenges in Southeast Asia that offset its efforts to boost sales in China in the quarter, IDC said.
In the second quarter, HP made no progress in the Asia-Pacific region and its ranking fell one spot to become the fourth-largest PC brand in the region, with a market share of 10.4 percent, according to IDC data.
For Dell Inc, a 23 percent increase in Asia-Pacific shipments in the quarter meant the world’s third-largest PC brand replaced HP as the third-biggest seller in the region, with a market share of 10.5 percent, while Asustek Computer Inc (華碩) remained the fifth-largest PC seller in the region with a market share of 5.8 percent, down from 6.3 percent in the first quarter, IDC data showed.
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