The vendors
Among the vendors, HP continues to go from strength to strength. Acer also showed a big jump, but a good chunk of this year-on-year increase was down to the Gateway and Packard Bell acquisitions.
In third place the Dell bars don’t look quite so impressive, but Morvay begged to differ. ‘Dell has managed a 70 percent year-on-year increase in consumer notebook sales in Western Europe,’ she said. ‘This was mainly down to Dell’s new retail strategy and has turned around a declining sales situation into 19 percent year-on-year consumer sales growth in Q1.’
Among the rest, Lenovo retook 6th place from Asus, although these figures still don’t include Eee PC sales, which Morvay assured us will be included from now on.
Apparently Asus really didn’t expect demand for the Eee PC to be so high and has faced greater demand than it has been able to supply.
Morvay thinks there is more to the popularity of the Eee PC than price – pointing out that you can buy full-sized laptops for well under £200 if you want. ‘Demand has become more sophisticated and some people want a second, simple, portable notebook,’ said Morvay. ‘These types of product are also considered appealing and cool by many people.’
Looking forward, Morvay thought it unlikely that we will continue to see 19 percent growth across EMEA, but expects it to still remain in double figures.
‘The fire at LG Chem will continue to have an effect on battery supply and, in Q2, Europeans may prefer to spend money on TVs, with the Euro 2008 football tournament coming up,’ she said. ‘However, we expect a strong ‘back-to-school push in Q3 so we should see some good growth then.’
