PC sales by value rose about 2 percent year-on-year to NT$12.66 billion (US$419 million) in the first half of this year as gaming PCs with higher price tags rose in popularity, data released by German market advisory firm GfK showed.
However, by volume, PC sales in the six-month period fell 5 percent from a year earlier to 511,000 units due to a continued decline in desktop PC shipments, GfK said.
Desktop PC sales have fallen almost 10 percent in the past two years, while notebook computer sales have shown resilience, with sales volume dropping only about 1 percent.
Taiwanese gaming PCs have been gaining popularity amid growing enthusiasm toward gaming competitions, which has boosted local PC consumption, GfK analyst Wang Jung-hsuan (王榕萱) said.
The average selling price for PCs in the local market rose in the first half, with average prices for notebook computers rising to NT$25,000 from NT$24,000 in the same period last year, GfK said.
As for desktop PCs, prices rose to NT$18,000 from less than NT$17,000 two years earlier, GfK said.
Since international brands launched ultra-thin notebooks in 2015, such models have seen increasing sales, Wang said.
Models less than 2cm thick and weighing less than 2kg accounted for 34 percent of the total PC market in Taiwan, she said.
Wang said that since high-capacity PCs hit the market in 2014 and as gaming grows in popularity, both desktop and notebook models have been growing strongly.
High capacity PCs made up almost 20 percent of the total PC market at the end of June, Wang said.
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