Total PC sales in Taiwan are poised to decline for the fourth consecutive year, as consumers continue to favor mobile devices that are less expensive than but as productive as their pricier counterparts, International Data Corp (IDC) forecast yesterday.
National PC sales are expected to fall by 5.1 percent to 2.55 million units this year, following a 15.6 percent fall last year, the market research firm said in a report.
Desktop computers are projected to account for 60 percent of total PC sales this year, with notebook computers making up the remaining 40 percent, the report said.
Last year, desktop and notebook sales in Taiwan reached 1.68 million and 1.01 million units respectively, it added.
“Taiwan’s PC market experienced its worst annual sales decline last year,” Taipei-based IDC analyst Joey Yen (嚴蘭欣) said by telephone yesterday. “The decline is likely to persist in the years ahead, but at a slower pace, mainly because of increasing replacement demand.”
Yen was referring to Microsoft Corp ending its technical support for PCs running its Windows XP operating system starting on Tuesday next week, a move expected to stimulate replacement demand for the US firm’s Windows 8 operating system-powered PCs.
Major PC vendors are forecast to see their sales of commercial laptops in Taiwan decrease by 1 percent annually this year due to growing replacement demand from enterprises, while sales of consumer laptops will remain under pressure in view of strong demand for mobile devices such as tablets, she added.
“Demand for notebooks, especially commercials models, will not fade, as enterprises still need to upgrade their PCs to enhance competitiveness,” Yen said.
According to the researcher’s report, more than 80 percent of notebooks sold last year were consumer models, while the remaining 20 percent were commercial models sold to businesses.
Along with falling overall PC sales, PC vendors are facing a second straight yearly drop in revenue generated from the Taiwanese market, IDC said, forecasting that revenue would fall 3 percent to US$1.69 billion this year from last year, when revenue fell 12 percent to US$1.7 billion.
Bucking the overall downward trend were Ultrabooks, whose low weight and other unique hardware features drove Taiwanese sales of the light-weight product up 42 percent to 240,000 units last year, compared with 170,000 in 2012, IDC said.
That volume is forecast to continue growing by 12.5 percent to 270,000 Ultrabook units this year as prices continue dropping, it added.
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