Worldwide sales of personal computers are expected to grow nearly 20 percent this year over last year, with laptops driving new sales, research group Gartner said yesterday.
Gartner said it expected total PC sales of 366.1 million units this year, a 19.7 percent increase from the 305.8 million units shipped last year.
It said worldwide PC spending is forecast to reach US$245 billion this year, up 12.2 percent from last year.
PHOTO: AFP
In December, Gartner forecast 13.3 percent growth in PC shipments this year and 1.9 percent growth in spending.
Gartner said PC market growth this year would be driven by sales of portable computers such as notebooks and netbooks.
“The PC industry will be overwhelmingly driven by mobile PCs, thanks to strong home growth in both emerging and mature markets,” Gartner research director George Shiffler said in a statement.
“Desk-based PC shipment growth will be minimal and limited to emerging markets,” he said.
“We expect mobile PCs to drive 90 percent of PC growth over the next three years,” Shiffler said. “In 2009, mobile PCs accounted for 55 percent of all PC shipments; by 2012, we expect mobile PCs to account for nearly 70 percent of shipments.”
Gartner principal analyst Ranjit Atwal said the upcoming Apple iPad tablet computer “is just one of many new devices coming to market that will change the entire PC ecosystem and overlap it with the mobile phone industry.”
Gartner said it expected 10.5 million traditional tablets and next-generation tablet devices to be shipped worldwide this year.
Gartner also released a forecast on Thursday for sales of touchscreen mobile devices, predicting sales would grow 97 percent this year over last year and would represent 27.4 percent of all mobile phone sales this year.
Gartner said it expected sales of touchscreen mobile devices of more than 362.7 million units this year, up 96.8 percent from last year.
By 2013, touchscreen mobile devices will account for 58 percent of all mobile device sales worldwide and more than 80 percent in developed markets such as North America and Western Europe, Gartner said.
“Touchscreens are no longer the preserve of high-end devices and are now being included in many midrange phones as more companies have been driving the consumer market for affordable touchscreen phones,” Gartner principal research analyst Roberta Cozza said.
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