The slump in the economy has moved some PC buyers in Europe, the
Middle East and Africa (EMEA) to small local vendors instead of
large sellers, said market researcher Dataquest.
"Home and some small business users buy cheaper PCs with less
emphasis on the brand, sparking the resurgence of local [PC]
assemblers," said Brian Gammage, principal analyst with Dataquest,
a unit of Gartner. "We have yet to see evidence of this for larger
businesses, who have just stopped buying."
While four of the five large brand name vendors recorded declines
in their sales, the small vendors saw their market share go up by
about 5.5% in the third quarter, Gammage said. Good logistics and
swift response to market changes are, however, prerequisites for
local vendors to win business, he added.
"We all focus on the Dell price war with Compaq and
Hewlett-Packard, but there is another one between Advanced Micro
Devices (AMD) and Intel. Small vendors are now better positioned to
take advantage of short-term opportunities," Gammage said.
Although some vendors benefit from the economic tide, PC shipments
in the EMEA region were down for the first time in history.
Businesses and consumers are re-examining their investment
priorities and have relegated PCs to the "don't need it now"
category, Dataquest said.
A total of 8.66 million units were shipped in the third quarter,
down 6% from the same period in 2000. The business segment declined
4.3%, while shipments to consumers decreased by 10.7%, according to
Dataquest's figures.
The leading vendors felt the biggest impact, with Compaq, IBM and
Fujitsu Siemens all recording double-digit shipment drops. HP has
its channel to thank for a stable figure, while Dell was the only
one to sell more units than in 2000, according to Dataquest.
Gammage said he expected sales to continue to decline compared to
the figures in 2000.
"I don't foresee growth until the second half of 2002," he said.
IDC, a Dataquest competitor, released its preliminary figures on
the EMEA PC market last week. The analyst corporation also reported
a drop in sales, but said that small businesses were still buying
from leading vendors, saving those vendors from more dramatic sales
drops.