The worldwide PC market grew slightly in the first quarter as hard disk drive supply remained a key constraint, research firm International Data Corp (IDC) said yesterday.
Global PC shipments totaled 87.1 million units in the first three months of this year, up 2.3 percent from 85.1 million units in the same period last year, the US-based firm said in a report.
The growth was slightly above IDC’s February projections of a 0.9 percent year-on-year decline, as large PC vendors were able to maintain shipments by managing inventory or absorbing price increases, the report said.
“PC market growth remained limited in the first quarter as hard disk drive supply and other factors limited demand,” said Loren Loverde, IDC vice president of worldwide consumer device trackers.
“We expect PC shipments to pick up significantly by the fourth quarter and beyond, as hard disk drive supply and pricing are normalized, Windows 8 is launched and replacements pick up,” he said.
Hewlett-Packard Co continued to take the biggest market share at 18 percent, followed by Lenovo Group Ltd (聯想) with 13.4 percent, Dell Inc with 11.6 percent, Acer Inc (宏碁) with 9.9 percent and Asustek Computer Inc (華碩) with 6 percent, IDC said.
Acer saw its shipments decline 3.7 percent from a year earlier, trailing the market, but improving on the first quarter of last year, when it recorded a steep drop of 15.8 percent year-on-year, IDC said.
On the other hand, Asustek recorded an annual shipment growth of 22 percent in the first quarter, the second-highest growth behind Lenovo’s 43.7 percent among the top five players.
IDC said Asustek had stepped in to fill the void left by other vendors and continued to see strong gains in the Asia-Pacific and EMEA — Europe, the Middle East and Africa — markets, which absorbed the large majority of its first-quarter shipments.
Gartner Inc also reported yesterday that worldwide PC shipments had increased 1.9 percent year-on-year to 89 million units in the first quarter, exceeding its projection of a 1.2 percent decline for the period.
The firm said the EMEA region had performed better than expected, with PC shipments growing 6.7 percent year-on-year in the first quarter, while the Asia-Pacific region performed below expectations, partly because of slow growth in India and China.
The slowdown in these countries serves as cautionary note to vendors that growth in the PC industry cannot depend heavily on the emerging markets, even though PC penetration in these regions is low, Gartner said.
Meanwhile, notebook shipments by Taiwanese companies in the first quarter were better than expected, Taipei-based Digitimes Research said in a report yesterday.
Taiwan’s original design manufacturing (ODM) service providers shipped 42.06 million notebooks in the three-month period, down 5.7 percent from the previous quarter, but up 2.5 percent from a year ago, the report said.
“The decrease was smaller than expected, which is encouraging for the industry,” Digitimes senior analyst Joanne Chien (簡佩萍) said.
The first quarter is a slow season for the industry, with shipments usually declining by between 8 and 12 percent, she added.
In terms of brand breakdown, shipments by Acer and Samsung Electronics Co both exceeded those of the previous quarter, while Toshiba Corp and Asustek saw a declines of within 3 percent.
However, with the exception of Asustek, it is difficult to say if the other three companies can maintain their momentum, Chien said.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”