Domestic PC sales increased 5 percent to 1.64 million units last year thanks to rising demand for large-screen laptops, a survey released yesterday by Germany-based market researcher GfK Group said.
Sales of desktops and laptops in Taiwan reached NT$29.5 billion (US$1 billion) last year, with desktops registering 2 percent in annual growth and laptops rising 6 percent, the survey showed.
Local consumers bought nearly 73,000 more PCs last year than in 2010, according to the poll.
Laptops accounted for 62 percent of all PC sales last year and remained the key driver of domestic PC sales, it said.
“Last year saw an influx of several new entry-level, large-screen laptops being introduced in the Taiwanese market,” GfK Taiwan general manager Lydia Huang (黃麗娜) said in a press release.
Huang said intense competition among manufacturers drove the average price of 15-inch laptops lower from NT$24,630 to NT$21,740.
According to GfK Taiwan, local consumers bought more than 1 million laptops valued at about NT$20 billion last year and retail tracking revealed a significant jump in the uptake of laptops with larger screen sizes.
The most popular were those with 14-inch screens, accounting for 31 percent of the total laptops sold last year, the research firm said.
However, signs of users upgrading to even larger screen sizes were seen as 15-inch models, which made up 17 percent of total laptop sales in 2010, accounted for more than 29 percent of sales last year, it added.
GfK Taiwan’s findings in January and February this year also indicated a continued rise in demand for 14-inch and larger laptops, accounting for 63 percent of the market in February.
“It is quite clear that the current trend will persist, with more PC users converting to higher-end, lightweight notebooks,” Huang said. “We can definitely anticipate a wider range, with next-generation central processing units available in the market whetting the appetites of consumers.”
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