The holiday season saw strong sales of computers, two of the world's leading computer industry research firms said in reports issued at the end of last week, with Hewlett-Packard Co (HP) leading the pack in the critical final three months of the year.
Both Gartner Inc and International Data Corp (IDC) reported healthy sales increases of between 12 percent and 15 percent for the three months ended Dec. 31 compared to the same period in 2002.
But the researchers disagree about how many computers were sold. Gartner says 48.4 million units were shipped during the final months of last year, while IDC says 44.6 million units left warehouse shelves. Both firms do agree that HP managed to overtake rival Dell Inc over the holidays.
"HP's strong focus on the consumer market in the United States, and its success in the Europe, Middle-East and Africa region, were important drivers in moving it into the No. 1 position," the Gartner report said, adding, "the fourth quarter is typically a weaker quarter for Dell because it has less presence in the worldwide consumer market."
IDC agreed.
"With its strong retail presence and holiday promotions, HP was able to sustain growth for the quarter at more than 21 percent year-on-year, capturing the top spot in worldwide shipments from Dell for the first time in a year," the IDC report said.
International Business Machines Corp (IBM), Fujitsu Ltd with Fujitsu Siemens Computers Holding and Toshiba Corp remained in the third, fourth and fifth positions, both firms said.
Strong demand from consumers buoyed the top five vendors, and corporations showed tentative signs of a return to buying.
"We continued to see solid growth following seasonal trends," said Loren Loverde, director of IDC's Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker.
"Caution in the commercial market has begun to dissipate, even as companies keep tight control on spending. Meanwhile, pricing remains cutthroat, supporting unit growth but reducing profits," he said.
Both researchers also released tentative results for the full year last year, calling for a return to double digit growth for the first time since 2000. IDC says 152.6 million computers were sold last year, up 11.4 percent from the previous year. Gartner calls for higher sales of 168.9 million units, or almost 11 percent higher than its figures for 2002.
"Strong consumer demand, robust notebook growth and falling prices were the three key driving forces for shipment growth in 2003," said Charles Smulders, a vice president at Gartner. "The professional market also showed positive growth, but it was still slow progress. In the US market, enterprise buyers were still cautious on IT spending, but they did show gradual increases in purchases in the second half of the year."
Last month IDC predicted that PC shipments would rise a further 11.4 percent this year on stronger business sales. Gartner has not released a recent forecast for PC shipment growth this year.
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