PC shipments of Taiwanese computer makers declined sharply in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) in the second quarter due to weak consumer demand, according to data from research firm IDC.
Acer Inc’s (宏碁) PC shipments in the region fell by 42.2 percent from a year earlier to 2.26 million units during the quarter, while Asustek Computer Inc’s (華碩) shipments dropped by 38.5 percent to 1.69 million units, IDC said in a report published on Thursday.
IDC said Acer maintained its third position with an 11.5 percent share of the market, but continued to be impacted by weak consumer demand and the disappearance of mini-notebooks, which constituted a significant part of the vendor’s sales volumes last year.
Asustek, which retained its fifth position with an 8.6 percent market share, was hit directly by a decline in its portable PC sales, the research firm said.
The US’ Hewlett-Packard remained the top PC vendor in the region, with a 19 percent market share, followed by China’s Lenovo Group Ltd (聯想) with 13.4 percent. Meanwhile, Dell Inc ranked fourth with a market share of 10.7 percent.
PC shipments in the region totaled 19.6 million units in the second quarter, down 22.2 percent from the same period last year.Meanwhile, portable PCs declined 26 percent year-on-year to 12.4 million units, with desktops falling 14.6 percent to 7.2 million units.
“The second quarter continued to be impacted by the large inventories of PCs in several countries. April and May were weak as expected, as most vendors, retailers, and distributors focused on stock reduction,” Chrystelle Labesque, IDC EMEA personal computing research manager, said.
“While June was supported by starting replenishment ahead of the back to school and product transitions, the volume of new orders remained constrained as caution prevailed in particular in retail,” she wrote in the report.
Separately, Morgan Stanley said it expects a 10 percent drop in worldwide PC shipments this year, down from the previous estimate of a 5 percent decrease, due to the absence of any catalyst until the fourth quarter of this year.
Morgan Stanley expressed belief that the PC market will slightly improve in the fourth quarter when new products running Microsoft Corp’s Windows 8.1 operating system and Intel Corp’s Haswell chipset become available.
Hence, Morgan Stanley forecast that global PC shipments will decline by 9 percent year-on-year to 81 million units in the third quarter and by 4 percent to 84 million units in the fourth quarter of the year.
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