A slowdown in IT spending and the cannibalization of tablet computers into notebook sales will negatively affect personal computer sales growth during the next two years, Japanese brokerage Nomura Holdings Inc warned recently.
Nomura slashed its global PC shipment annual growth forecast for this year, next year and 2014 to down 3.2 percent, up 0.8 percent and up 2.1 percent respectively, from a previous estimate of down 1 percent, up 7 percent and up 6 percent.
“Given the shrinking market size for PCs, we think business model changes and consolidation seem likely in the coming two years,” Eve Jung (戎宜蘋), a Taipei-based analyst at Nomura, said in a note to clients on Wednesday.
Despite the official launch of Microsoft Corp’s Windows 8 operating system (OS), demand for PCs had not improved significantly yet, Jung said.
She also expects limited positivity driven by Windows 8 in the next two to three quarters, as it would take time to enrich content for the touch-friendly system’s application store and users might need time to learn the new OS.
The decline in the average selling prices of 7-inch and 10-inch tablets running on Google Inc’s Android platform, as well as Microsoft’s Windows tablets, could further hurt notebook sales next year and in 2014, Jung said.
Nomura forecast tablet shipments to touch 190 million units next year and 244 million units in 2014, surpassing desktop PC estimates of 144 million units shipped next year and notebook shipments of 218.5 million units for 2014.
“We believe tablets could remain the bright spot for the IT industry in 2013,” Jung said.
Among PC brands, Jung expected Lenovo Group Ltd (聯想), Asustek Computer Inc (華碩電腦), Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics Co to continue gaining global PC market share at the expense of Hewlett-Packard Co, Acer Inc (宏碁) and Dell Inc next year.
She also forecast increasing growth opportunities for hybrid tablets and notebooks following the launch of Windows 8.
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