|
Wednesday September 16, 2009
|
 The emergence of the low-priced netbook has meant two things for the PC industry: an increase in the number of consumer notebook PCs, and a corresponding drop in PC revenues.
That's the inevitable conclusion of IDC, whose Quarterly PC Tracker concluded that overall PC sales fell by 2.4 percent versus a year ago, with revenues plunging by 19.4 percent. The culprit, of course, was netbooks (or mininotebooks, as IDC dubs them).. Naturally, the only growth was in the consumer notebook sector, with an increase of 44 percent in terms of units.
Commercial notebook shipments dropped 16 percent. But mininotebooks climbed by 26 percent, and traditional consumer notebooks climbed 13 percent. Desktop unit shipments fell by 17 percent, although IDC did not break out the segment further.
What does the future hold? IDC expects some of the netbook interest to be sopped up by the portion of the mininotebook category that will pay a bit extra for a consumer-low-voltage (CULV) microprocessor from Intel or AMD. But whether buyers will opt for pricier models or stick what what works is quite literally a multi-million-dollar question.
""While we expect mininotebook share and growth to stabilize
with greater competition from traditional notebooks, the stakes are enormous,"
said Loren Loverde, director of IDC's Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker, in a statement. "Buyers
need to be willing to pay a premium for more robust systems, which may be a
challenge in tight economic times and in an era of 'good enough' computing. On
the other hand, not everyone wants an entry-level system, and rising commercial
spending should boost demand for traditional notebooks. After all, even prices
on traditional notebooks are falling, and device cost needs to be balanced with
the device capabilities, resulting productivity, and total cost of ownership
including maintenance costs."
Here are IDC's predictions:
PC Shipments By Region And Form Factor,
2008-2013
(Shipments in millions)
|
Region
|
Form Factor
|
2008
|
2009*
|
2010*
|
2011*
|
2012*
|
2013*
|
|
USA
|
Desktop PC
|
31.4
|
26.6
|
25.6
|
25.1
|
24.8
|
24.5
|
|
|
Portable PC
|
34.1
|
39.5
|
44.5
|
52.0
|
58.7
|
62.9
|
|
|
Total PC
|
65.5
|
66.1
|
70.1
|
77.1
|
83.4
|
87.4
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
International
|
Desktop PC
|
113.5
|
97.6
|
98.1
|
101.2
|
104.2
|
106.1
|
|
|
Portable PC
|
108.4
|
120.4
|
141.7
|
172.1
|
204.3
|
238.6
|
|
|
Total PC
|
221.9
|
218.0
|
239.8
|
273.3
|
308.5
|
344.7
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Worldwide
|
Desktop PC
|
144.9
|
124.2
|
123.7
|
126.4
|
129.0
|
130.6
|
|
|
Portable PC
|
142.5
|
159.9
|
186.2
|
224.1
|
262.9
|
301.5
|
|
|
Total PC
|
287.4
|
284.1
|
309.9
|
350.4
|
391.9
|
432.1
|
* Forecast data
|
|
|
Mixx It
Digg It
Stumble
More...
September 17, 2009 5:41 PM
I find it incredible that the bottom line shifts so dramatically for these companies on a netbook sale vs a laptop sale.
September 18, 2009 8:26 PM
Netbooks are increasing unit volume, but the revenue change is not just netbooks. Where people were willingly buying traditional laptops at $1000 they now are getting them at $500.
This down-trading the laptop to laptop sales are not broken out here but have more to do with total revenue changes than Netbooks as Laptops are selling at 4 times the unit rate of Netbooks still. It's the laptop top-end that's getting slammed.
Just wait for the wailing when ARM and other processors put Netbooks that cover 90% of consumer's needs out there for $125 to $200 retail...