Published on the 29/08/2009 | Written by Newsdesk
Gartner identifies consumers and small business as sectors to lead recovery…
The Australian PC market declined by 2.9% in the second quarter of 2009 from the same quarter in 2008 but increased 11% from last quarter, according to quarterly shipment results from IT research house Gartner.
Gartner says that whilst the total number of PC shipments was down, the decline will remain relatively modest primarily due to the Federal Government’s economic stimulus program.
Looking ahead, Gartner believes the best PC sales opportunities in Australia will come from the consumer, small and midsized business (SMB) and education sectors, spurred by internal demands and beneficial conditions supported by the Federal Government.
Eileen He, research analyst for client computing markets at Gartner said that while the Australian PC market was affected by the economic downturn, as were other mature markets in Asia Pacific, opportunities still exist in several sectors.
“PC vendors that rely heavily on the professional or enterprise market should allocate more resources to SMBs and the education sector, including channel, product, service and financing options during the next 18 months,” says He.
Australian PC market trends reported by Gartner include:
• Consumers continue to choose mobile PCs over less expensive desk-based PCs, despite consumers having tighter budgets. Consumer mobile PC shipments increased 27.6% with 368,013 units in 2Q09, compared with a decline of 15.9% in consumer desk-based PC shipments with 198,312 units.
• Mini-notebook shipments grew 398.4% year over year in Q209, to reach 14.3 percent of total mobile PC shipments. The growth rate outperformed most of the top mature markets in Western Europe, with 97,220 mini-notebooks sold in Australia during this period. The consumer market accounted for 90.3 percent of mini-notebook sales.
• With SMBs accounting for a 99.5% share of all 1.96 million registered Australian companies, this segment accounted for 55.4% of all professional shipments with 342,561 units sold.
Australia is one of the most-penetrated PC markets in Asia Pacific. Almost 80 percent of professional PC demand and 54% of consumer PC purchases were replacements in 2008.
Gartner analysts advise that PC vendors need to support their critical channel partners to refocus on the most profitable and growing sectors.
“Vendors that rely mostly on retail sales need to consider more attractive promotions to stimulate spending from consumer and SMB buyers. This could include higher cash-back, device or component bundling, and competitive prices and terms for PC leasing,” said He.
“With the Australian Government allocating substantial money to stimulate jobs and the economy, Australia is unique among mature Asia Pacific markets. PC vendors doing business in Australia should not consider it simply as a highly PC-saturated market being seriously impacted by the economic crisis. They should not lose focus on this market and need to react accordingly to offer competitive products and services,” said He.
