Flagging sales of commercial desktops and notebooks shoved the
entire UK PC market into negative growth during the first quarter,
according to data released by IDC today.
The UK had been forecast to decline 3%, but the severity of the
economic slump has caused the market to drop 8.4% with a little
over 2.8million units shipped and all but the consumer portable
segment moving in the wrong direction.
"Businesses have cut budgets 20% to 30% across all departments
and that is impacting IT spend," said Eszter Morvay, research
manager at IDC. "We expect that to continue for another six to nine
months before it improves."
Volumes in the commercial desktop and notebook segments fell
22.4% and 21.1% respectively, while in the consumer segment
notebooks shipments rose 18.7% as sales of retail desk-based stock
keeping units dropped 17.2%.
Netbooks accounted for about 30% of the 1.175million consumer
mobiles sold in the UK and helped to maintain growth in the
segment.
Out of the top 10 UK suppliers, only Acer, Toshiba and Samsung
posted positive movements, with growth of 17.5%, 7.7% and 230.3%
respectively.
Market leader HP saw sales decline 7.9%, while Dell - which once
accounted for nearly one in every three PCs sold in the UK - saw
volumes drop 22.2%, more than twice the market average.
Morvay said Dell was too reliant on the corporate enterprise
desktop and notebook market and had been hit hard by the
significant slowdown in the financial services sector.
Meanwhile, Fujitsu Technology Services' sales plummeted 50.4% as
it suffered from the uncertainty surrounding its change of
ownership and its unwillingness to pursue market share at the cost
of profits, added IDC.
The other major suppliers that experienced a downturn in
fortunes were Lenovo, which saw sales fall 18.5% after a torrid
couple of months and Sony and Apple, premium brands whose unit
shipments slipped 18.3% and 13.3% respectively.
This story originally appeared onMicroscope.