Notebook sales boost PC market growth
Analysts of US market research provider IDC expect that 302 million PCs, servers and notebooks will be shipped worldwide in 2008.
This is equivalent to a total market growth of 12.8 per cent this year. The market is then expected to grow by an average 9 per cent annually until 2012, which corresponds to 426 million shipped units. The analysts also expect the total PC shipment value to grow by four per cent annually until 2012. They say that decreasing PC prices will be offset by portable computers, which generally cost more and have an increasing share of the total numbers shipped. Notebook sales figures for 2007 increased by 33.8 per cent worldwide. While the strong growth will slow down, IDC analysts expect that it will still be above 10 percent in 2012.
IDC's Bob O'Donnell said that budget notebooks especially, will stimulate growth: "Consumers are increasingly seeing notebooks as essential personal communication and information gathering tools".
(trk)
