“With slower growth rates and reduced profit margins, the PC industry will face vendor consolidation, with three of the top 10 PC manufacturers exiting the market by 2007, according to Gartner Inc. While the market has registered double-digit shipment growth the past few years, tougher times lie ahead,” Enterprise Networks & Servers reports.
“Currently, the top 10 worldwide PC vendors, by unit shipment, are Dell, HP, IBM, Fujitsu, Fujitsu Siemens, Toshiba, NEC, Apple Computer, Lenovo Group and Gateway. Of the top 10 worldwide vendors, only Dell has consistently been profitable in the past several years,” Enterprise Networks & Servers reports.
Full article here.
Apparently past few years means 2 or 3 years, while past several years means before the iMac was launched.
Umm…Apple hasn’t been profitable the last several years?
By 2010 there will be another serious player in the game – China. Dell has already stopped selling their cheapest computers there because they could not compete on price! I believe that China will, in a few years, flood the US market with very cheap computers based on Linux. At that time the shake out will start again – big time. Think about $199 computers at Wal-Mart. Or a notebook for $299. A good indication of when this shift moves to full swing will be when iPods and iTunes work on Linux.
I believe that the big PC players will retain a basic desktop, but only to sell profitable notebooks or servers.
Apple’s position is so different from the others that I believe they have the most protection moving to 2010. They are going to continue to develop their version of the digital hub, mature OS X (XI?) and bring out a long list of “one more things” that consumers will want.
Apple has been profitable since before Clinton left office. I think that would qualify for the last few years, don’t you?
Compare Apple with Porsche, .. is the no. x00 or so vendor but they are making good products and profit. Apple has not been so strong as at this very moment for many many years !
Apple has been quite consistently profitable during this decade at least, so I’m not sure what the author is referring to there.
Other than “beleaguered” Gateway/eMachines, I’m not not sure who else from the top 10 might be a prime candidate for going belly up though. On the other end of the spectrum, I would wager that Apple will be in the top 5 consistently by the end of 2005 though for sure.
Three of the top ten will exit the market, the other seven will be buying from China, and only one will not be selling shiste.
This post is brought to you by the magic word “doing” — or is it doing as in boing. We’ll never know.
I had no idea who Lenovo was until I just googled them.
Now I know, I don’t see it being them.
Gateway are obvious losers, the world should only have one company called Fujitsu – so I’m guessing one of the two (my guess is Fujitsu itself).
Which leaves us looking for a third candidate – Toshiba is protected becuase of its laptop reputation, IBM and HP have corporate sales to keep them going, and Dell has enough corporate and government sales to stay alive.
So NEC it is then.
well we gotta make sure Apple won’t be part of those 3! get the word out G5 powrmac, g5 Imac, powerbooks, ibook & emacs! let them know about it
Merges rather than an exit from the market might take care of all of the attrition. You have to wonder about the timeline analysts use. These companies are all fairly strong. Even with crap from china most will stay strong. HP, IBM, and Apple aren’t necessarily competing on price to begin with, and likely have no interest in doing so. Apple is hugely profitable. I think Dell’s in more trouble than anyone except Gateway from chinese competition.
MCCFR: ” . . . the world should only have one company called Fujitsu . . . “
BWAAAAAAAA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!
Good one.
I think that Ken’s analysis is right on. But by 2010 the dollar’s exchange rate will be so weak that nothing produced abroad will be cheap in the U.S.
Actually Apple has been very profitable.
They are opening stores all over, 4.6 billion in cash etc.
Not on the scale of other companies in market share but that doesn’t matter.
All these other PC companies took a dive to the bottom in thier quality and prices to gain market share and now the market is flooded.
Dell is the star for now, but before it was IBM then Compaq, then Gateway.
The rich get richer and buy Mac’s, the poor get poorer and buy $400 Dells and finally WebTV’s.
Pretty straight forward… take your pick:
Fujitsu, Fujitsu Siemens, Toshiba, NEC, Gateway
I’m surprised Gateway is still a top 10 player. I wouldn’t be surprised if IBM loses interest in the wintel box market also.
PS… don’t hold your breath on dollar exchange rate staying weak. Many countries D E P E N D on a good exchange rate.
actually, I think that Gateway is only there because of the purchase of emachines
Oh no sound the death knell for Apple. What a laugh.
Since when was Apple EVER grouped with PCs? As a PERSONAL COMPUTER, yes, but for the other PC definitions, “partially comparable,” “particularly cruddy,” “potentially crashable,” or “piece of c-rap,” then NO. Virus free, no flu shots needed, best customer support in the world, innovative products, and kick-a-ss advertising.
Apple user since 1978. 3 in-house, 5 in-garage (but they all still work!!!!!)
billyboy:
“Gateway is only there because of the purchase of emachines”
No. Gateway *is* eMachines. Gateway went out of business. The only thing left of the original gateway (beside the cow logo) is the top brass who now run eMachines renamed as Gateway. Got that? Good!
Gateway’s CEO is Inouye, ex-emachines. It was a reverse buy-out, like Apple and NeXT. They still have cash, maybe buy someone else up, Packard Bell (yes they’re still going outside of the US) would be a good fit.
IBM doesn’t do consumer PCs, HP should do the same, but retail Macs for the consumer market.
There’s still a massive market for ‘white box’ PCs, I recall 40% figure mentioned within the last year. Apparently Germans buy fewer brand names too.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see more than three of the top ten drop out or merge, there’s plenty coming up from below. Expect an Indian manufacturer to come forward.
I would imagine Gateway is in this top 10 for the same reason that horrid ‘Alexander’ is in the box office top 10: the spread between #1 and #10 is so great that it isn’t difficult to get on that list no matter how much you might suck.
I think we can be certain that they meant to emphasis “PC” vendors, since we know that Apple doesn’t make peecees. 😀
Looking at the quality of current superstore PC’s (heh), I ‘d be surprised if only three makers leave the market.
The strongest two makers are Apple and Dell. Everyone else is losing money and/or building junk. Gateway is especially sad, why don’t they just close shop and get it over with? $199 Wal-Mart PCs will only succeed if there’s some quality to them and they actually work.
Anybody remembers Swan, Zero, AST, ALR, and Umax, etc,etc. Those were the PC makers that die along the way. I guess Gateway is next!