Two US-based technology research firms have predicted PC sales will rebound this year -- good news for local manufacturers.
Based on better-than-expected results in the last quarter of last year, Gartner Dataquest Inc revised its prediction for this year's world PC market on Tuesday to 7.9 percent growth, up from 7.6 percent.
PHOTO: AFP
Over at rival International Data Corp (IDC), the call is for 8.3 percent growth in the global PC market this year to 147.5 million units.
"This will be very good news for Taiwan," said Eve Jung (
"Most Taiwanese PC makers, especially notebook makers, will benefit from growth at this level," she said.
Jung estimates growth in the local notebook industry may go as high as 25 percent this year. Her predictions for the motherboard industry are between 10 and 15 percent growth.
To counter sluggish sales, the PC industry has been trying to come up with a "killer application" -- a must-have feature that will entice consumers to start buying again.
Jung said that the ability to access the Internet and devices such as printers and digital cameras wirelessly from notebook computers would be just the thing that could fuel growth in the market.
As of yet, there is no such killer application for desk-top computers this year, she said.
Consumers and corporations have shied away from buying new computers as their current models are powerful enough for their needs.
The industry has been anticipating a round of new buying to replace older models bought in 1999, the last boom year for the industry.
Gartner's report predicts that the replacement cycle will kick in by the second half of this year.
The growth in local computer sales will outpace the global rate of 7.9 percent, topping 9.6 percent, a local Gartner analyst said yesterday, but most growth would come from consumers, not businesses.
"The business market will be more difficult as IT spending remains conservative and PC procurement schedules have been greatly delayed," said Amy Teng, Gartner researcher in Taipei.
But Teng sees good prospects for the notebook market.
"The narrowing price gap with mobile PCs will attract an increasing proportion of desk-based PC users to shift to buy notebooks," Teng said.
IDC's forecast calls for a recovery from the current slow growth to moderate growth in the second half of the year.
"We continue to expect slow worldwide PC shipment growth for the next several quarters, before the market accelerates in the latter half of 2003," said Loren Loverde, an analyst at IDC, in a report released last December.
"While business spending has been slow to recover, we believe it will start to pick up in the first half of this year, and market drivers like portable adoption, wireless networking, broadband adoption, new designs, media convergence, and [cost] improvements will support moderate growth," Loverde said in the report.
Growth is expected to be slow in the first half of this year over concerns a US-led war in Iraq would have a depressing influence on the market.
If a war takes place, Gartner will reduce its forecast for global PC market growth to just 0.9 percent this year.
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