Volume up, ASP down
Year on year volume growth of notebook sales of over 30 per cent was the driver of an overall increase in the EMEA PC market of 14.4 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2007 compared with the same quarter a year ago. Desktop sales remained flat.
In Western Europe the percentage of notebooks sold of all PCs was 62 per cent, up from 52 per cent a year ago. “Desktop replacement, upgrades and the trend towards one notebook per person were key drivers of the notebook market in Western Europe, with the retail channel still very competitive.” Nicolina Angelou, EMEA research analyst at IDC, told participants of a web conference. “In the business market notebooks comprised 52 per cent of PCs sold.”
Eszter Morvay, EMEA senior research analyst, added that IDC expects these trends to continue in 2008, with 14-15 per cent overall growth, at least 20 per cent notebook growth and the renewal of the SMB install base as an important driver. She stressed, however, that ASPs (average selling prices) would continue to drop, which would lead to further market consolidation as local vendors struggle to compete with the big international ones.
2007 saw HP and Acer strengthen their positions as the numbers one and two EMEA PC vendors respectively. HP saw its share of the market improve from 17.4 to 19.2 per cent, while Acer’s went from 10.9 to 13.1 per cent. While some share was taken from third placed Dell and fourth placed Fujitsu Siemens, the big loser was the rest of the market outside the top five, whose share dropped from 48.6 to 45.8 per cent.
Karine Paoli, director for IDC's EMEA PC group, said: "2008 will benefit from continued growth in the portable space and from an acceleration of the business refresh cycle. However, as the market further commoditizes, the industry faces increasing business model and marketing challenges, and market share concentration among a smaller number of players, already evident this quarter, is likely to continue."
