IT budget cuts have sent UK sales of business PCs 25% down in
the second quarter compared with a year ago, according to research
firm Gartner.
The overall PC market was down only 6.5%, but this was buoyed by
the sudden growth in popularity of the netbook in the consumer
sector, Gartner said in a report.
PC sales across Western Europe fell only 3.3%, but Gartner
estimates that, without the introduction of low price netbooks, the
decline would have been about five times greater.
Acer, which has done well on sales of netbooks, saw 32.6%
year-on-year growth. The more business-focussed Dell saw a decline
of 6% and HP's sales fell by 25.1%.
The quarter was marked by the decline across both desk-based and
mobile PCs, with a quarter of the professional market
disappearing," said Gartner analyst Ranjit Atwal.
Many businesses have indicated that they are sweating as many
hardware IT assets as possible to ensure they have enough budget
for more strategic projects.
According to Gartner, the UK PC market will not recover from the
effects of the economic downturn until next year.