Notebook sales on the rise

Australian notebook sales increased by a sizeable 37 percent in calendar Q4 of 2005 compared to the same quarter last year, researcher IDC said.

Compared to Q3, notebook sales also rose by five percent and during calendar 2005, 1.2 million notebooks were shipped in Australia.

Still, Q4 2005 was lower than IDC's forecast due to the underperformance of the consumer market while the corporate market was also slower than expected.

IDC hardware research manager Michael Sager, said Toshiba climbed back to the top of the notebook market in the fourth quarter, growing shipments by 16.5 per cent from Q3.

HP fell to second position with 19 per cent share after leading the market for two consecutive quarters.

Dell ascended to third position, posting 35 per cent growth from the same period in 2004.

Finishing in fourth position was Acer with a 14 percent share. Acer's share had fallen since calendar Q2 when it took the number one spot due to price agressiveness in the retail market.

"Rounding out the top five was Lenovo (6.4 percent) which was still largely constricted to the commercial market in the fourth quarter.

"Apple had a very successful performance in this quarter to grab almost five percent of the notebook market. The seemingly non-stop advertising campaign from ASUS (3.7 percent) seems to be paying off with the vendor climbing to the seventh position in the fourth quarter," said Sager.