Rising notebooks, setting desktops

Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst for Gartner’s Client Computing Markets group, said: “Asia-Pacific took over as the second largest PC market during the fourth quarter. 2007 showed a clear indication of the worldwide PC market landscape: strong growth in emerging regions such as Asia-Pacific and slower growth in markets such as the United States.”

Hewlett-Packard was in a virtual tie with Dell for the number one position in worldwide PC shipments in 2006, and HP extended its lead in 2007 as it accounted for 18.2 percent of global PC shipments. “HP established a solid number one position in 2007. Robust consumer and mobile PC sales across all regions were two main drivers of HP’s overall growth,” said Kitagawa. “The company experienced the strongest growth among the top five vendors in fourth quarter of 2007, as its shipments increased 23.3 percent in
the quarter.”

To assess a notebook specific research, a release from DisplaySearch late last year, stated: “The PC industry is focused on the replacement of desktop PCs with notebooks. Prices for notebook PCs continue to decline while features continue to improve.”

The latest data from DisplaySearch showed that retail prices for notebook PCs declined 14 percent year-on-year in September 2007. Sub-US$1000 price points with the latest dual-core CPUs are no longer an exception, but rather have become the rule.

“Consumers and business alike are increasingly turning toward mobile platforms and away from the traditional desktop PC and monitor combination,” said the DisplaySearch release. “Also of increasing importance to traditional consumer electronics and computer retailers are accessories. Competition is aggressive, with pressure on margins and the increasing penetration of club and warehouse stores into this space.”

So the number crunchers are in agreement with most of the main vendors. The desktop cannot hope to maintain the sort of growth that the notebook is witnessing. The most significant shift is the thinking of the end-user. No longer do they look to buy a desktop first, then buy a notebook later. The notebook has become the first port of call for PC purchases.

The SMB market is also playing an important role in the shift towards notebooks. Mobility is an important issue for a number of SMBs and when they can get all the functionality they need from a notebook, they have more reason than ever before to invest in notebooks over desktops.

There is still a need for desktops. Their growth remains flat, but they haven’t plumped into obscurity in the wake of notebook growth. The high-end will still be demanding desktops and not every vertical of the market needs constant mobile access. Resellers looking to succeed in the PC landscape should be adaptive to the specific needs of their customers. Not all end-users will be after notebooks over desktops, and vice-versa, and resellers should be alive to the opportunity to provide both PC mediums.

desktops hardware notebooks rising setting