PC sales on pace for 20 percent jump

A recent report form analyst firm IDC has placed global PC shipments on pace for a 20 percent yearly increase.

The company said in its quarterly PC tracker report that year over year, sales were projected to hit 19.8 percent growth from 2009 levels and continue on the growth seen in the last quarter of that year.

Helping to push the higher numbers has been an increase in desktop systems sales. Commercial desktops for business use experienced growth for the first time since 2008, while all-in-one systems also recorded strong numbers, said IDC.

Also helping to drive growth was a surge in sales for emerging markets. The company estimated that sales in emerging regions grew by as much as 37 percent over last year.

"New devices such as e-readers and media tablets will pose disruptive challenges to conventional usage models while opening up intriguing possibilities in consumer and mobile business spaces," said IDC research analyst Jay Chou.

"Aside from brute computing power, the value proposition of the PC will be increasingly measured by the flexibility with which it can meet the demands of content creation and content consumption as well as achieving optimal portability."

While desktop shipments have been recovering, IDC said that it expects portables to continue to take over larger shares of the market. By 2014 the company forecasts that nearly 570 million PCs could ship, 426.9 million of those consisting of portable systems.