The worldwide PC market continued to grow at a healthy pace in the second quarter of 2006, although slow growth in Europe limited worldwide shipments to an increase of 9.7% year on year, according to IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker.
While overall growth remained strong, there were some unexpected twists in regional performance. Inventory from the first quarter and distractions from the World Cup significantly cut into European growth with shipments increasing by roughly 7% year on year compared to twice that the prior quarter and a forecast of 12%. Meanwhile, shipments in the United States increased by 6.7% on aggressive competition among the market leaders following slower growth the prior two quarters. Latin America and Asia/Pacific excluding Japan (APeJ) also saw strong growth in the quarter, while growth in Japan was slower than expected.
Acer continued to gain share worldwide while Fujitsu Siemens struggled in its core markets. Dell improved on its first quarter performance, growing U.S. shipments roughly in line with the market and gaining share worldwide. HP had another strong quarter in the United States, but the slow market in Europe constrained overall growth to 13% from more than 23% the prior quarter. Gateway and Apple also performed well with growth of roughly 16% in the U.S.
“We continue to see aggressive competition as the market transitions to a new phase,” said Loren Loverde, director of IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker, in the press release. “In addition to changing regional dynamics, we can expect to see heightened competition in the second half of the year as companies vie for growth. Aggressive competition between processor vendors and the delayed release of Windows Vista will contribute to the changes vendors face entering the next cycle in the PC market.”
“Manufacturers in the United States were very assertive in the second quarter and used low prices and portable adoption to collectively reverse sluggish growth trends from the previous six months,” said Richard Shim, senior analyst with IDC’s Personal Computing program, in the press release. “HP, Apple, and Gateway led the charge with double digit growth rates outpacing the industry average. Dell slightly lagged the market while maintaining its leadership position by a wide margin.”
Regional Outlook
• United States – Total shipments came in slightly ahead of forecasts. While portables growth remained strong, demand for desktops also made a significant contribution. Strong growth from HP and an improved performance from Dell also helped boost growth.
• EMEA – Slowing demand in Western Europe with the additional impact of the World Cup and increased inventory levels in Q1 contributed to constrain second quarter sales in EMEA. The shift to portables continued across the region, although growth of both desktops and portables declined notably from prior quarters.
• Japan – Despite optimism on the economic front, PC shipment growth continued to slow as commercial replacements decline and the consumer segment faces growing competition from other electronics such as flat-screen TVs.
• Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) – Growth in APeJ continues at a rapid pace, fueled by China’s robust GDP growth and technology adoption. Other large markets such as India and South Korea grew slightly slower than expected, although robust growth in China more than compensated, keeping regional growth above 18%.
Vendor Highlights
• Apple shipments increased by double digits in the second quarter following a slow first quarter. Strong portable PC sales through its retail outlets had a significant impact with retail growing by 50% and portables by over 60% year on year. The strong growth reflects a successful transition to Intel-based systems – a critical transition for the company that sets the stage for future growth.
• Dell remained the clear market leader and gained worldwide market share despite facing tougher competition than in recent years. A strong performance in key international markets contributed as worldwide shipment growth was up incrementally from 10.2% in the first quarter to 10.9% year on year in the second quarter. Shipments to the United States, which represent more than half of Dell’s business, show strong sales in portables and in public sector sales, but grew slightly below the overall market.
• HP had another robust quarter, boosted by strong growth in the United States. The company managed second quarter growth of more than 15% in the U.S. market. Growth in EMEA slowed with the market, but strong U.S. demand and other international markets kept overall growth in double digits.
• Lenovo managed a nice recovery in the United States with shipments rising almost 6% year on year. Worldwide growth of nearly 13% was also positive – coming in ahead of Dell and roughly even with HP. However, essentially all of the growth continues to come from APeJ, while shipments in other regions decline.
• Acer continued to make steady gains across major regions. Worldwide shipment growth declined a bit from prior quarters, but remains the fastest of the top vendors. Growth in the company’s largest markets – EMEA and APeJ – was down from prior quarters, but continues at a multiple of the broader markets, and expansion in other regions continues at a rapid pace.
• Fujitsu/Fujitsu Siemens was hampered by the slowing European market. Worldwide shipments were flat from a year ago as continued slow growth in Japan was unable to compensate for a slight decline in Europe.
• Gateway had a strong quarter, with shipments growing by roughly 15% year on year. The United States dominated shipments and growth in the second quarter and overall growth slowed from a spike in the first quarter. However, this is the fifth consecutive quarter of double-digit gains for the company, representing a strong turnaround after refocusing its distribution channels.
Top 5 Vendors, Worldwide PC Shipments, Second Quarter 2006 (Preliminary) (Units Shipments are in thousands)
Notes:
• Shipments include shipments to distribution channels or end users. OEM sales are counted under the vendor/brand under which they are sold.
• PCs include Desktop, Notebook, Ultra Portable, and x86 Servers.
• PCs do not include handhelds. Data for all vendors are reported for calendar periods.
Source: IDC, July 19, 2006
Top 5 Vendors, U.S. PC Shipments, Second Quarter 2006 (Preliminary) (Units Shipments are in thousands)
Notes:
• IDC estimates for Gateway are prior to financial earnings reports.
• Shipments include shipments to distribution channels or end users. OEM sales are counted under the vendor/brand under which they are sold.
• PCs include Desktop, Notebook, Ultra Portable, and x86 Servers.
• PCs do not include handhelds. Data for all vendors are reported for calendar periods.
Source: IDC, July 19, 2006
IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker gathers PC market data in 55 countries by vendor, form factor, brand, processor brand and speed, sales channel and user segment. The research includes historical and forecast trend analysis as well as price band and installed base data. http://www.idc.com/
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Gartner: Apple Mac grabbed 4.6% U.S. market share in Q2 06 – July 19, 2006
Apple comming from behind!
We’ll soon see how true the urban legend is – the phrase “Macs are more secure because fewer people use them” is about to be put to the test. And be proven false of course.
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Onward and upward!
That is the best Apple can accomplish — 4%? Indeed the reason there are no viruses is the small number of people that actually use them. OSX is the swiss cheese of computer security and Apple fanboys will discover this if anyone ever buys one of these slow and over priced computers. Apple is in deep trouble — the new ipod killer is coming out, sales of PCs are blowing Apple out of the water, and there is no software to run on their computers.
People don’t want an MP3 player that only plays stolen music. They want the choice to go to any music store and purchase what they want and not pay the Steve Jobs tax. Let see how many suckers there are to purchase Apple stock as it crashes into the ground as they go out of business over the next 18 months.
None of this is reason for celebration. Until Apple delivers the quality everyone around here brags about, Steve will have to be satisfied with this tiny market share.
But, what does he care? The minions keep making him richer without demanding the quality product consumers deserve.
I will remain on the sideliines, not buying any Apple product nor any Apple stock.
Pete, Apple’s small market share has nothing to do with quality (I mean, look at WinDull). Apple is one company against the combined might of every other PC maker plus Microsoft. It also has to educate an ignorant public – hopefully the “Get a Mac” ads are the start of a sustained effort.
It’s currently growing faster than the overall market, so all is good.
<B>The minions keep making him richer without demanding the quality product consumers deserve.</B
And I am guessing that Mr. Peterson believes that MS is creating the “quality product comsumers deserve?” If that is your thinking then you must still be using a Singer Typewriter.
Those of us who have chosen to purchase an Apple computer stocked with Apple’s OS is because it IS the quality product that consumers deserve AND demand.
Good luck with Vista when and if you ever get it. Or are you still uncertain about Windows 95?
What? no X-Servers counted?
Apple sold a Shiiteload of them for supercomputers.
There are more PCs than Macs sold because PCs are cheaper.
I say, we [Mac users] must move forward, not backward, upward not forward, and always twirling, twirling, <u>twirling</u> towards freedom!
The trolls are getting fidgety.
Almost 5% share. That’s pretty impressive considering how dreary the outlook was just a few short years ago. 10% can’t be that far away.
May I ask the MDN webmaster what was so horrible about mine or Connor MacBook’s posts that you had to remove them. We were discussing international sales figures. Does not compute. You have every right to remove any post you wish, but in this instance neither were offensive or trolling. Can you please give a reasonable explanation?
Mac Realist likes to suck off little boys.
Pete Peterson sucks off Mac Realist while Mac Realist sucks off little puppy dogs.
Can you please give a reasonable explanation?
Of course they can’t, they have no rules here, not even a site “terms of use”. Even though they say they have one, it’s nowhere to be found, the mods delete posts and ban anyone they please.
They literatly shit on their own visitors by bombarding them with advertising, trick links, pop unders, mouse over text links on top of it.
Then they “claim” they get 30,000 visitors, but recording link counts show it’s more like a bit over 1000 of the same users with some daily change. Lately going downwards.
Lots of people have left this site, that’s what use to make this site fun, the people and their comments.
We know all about the stories, we have disgussed them ad nauseum.
WHAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
MacDailyNews is PICKING on us!!!!!!! WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!
It’s not FUN around here anymore.
And we’re babies.
Has there ever been a measurement taken of consumer market share? Dell and HP sell literal truckloads of PCs to fill up the nation’s office buildings. Take those units out of the numbers and the results may be quite different.
4.8% is just the start. Consider that Mac Books were not on sale for over half the quarter, and sales of the Power Mac G5 must have been significantly reduced due to the upcoming “Mac Pro.” The second half of this year is going to amazing for Apple…
Apple’s doing very well in the United States but their world market share is still rather small. This is an issue that Apple needs to address.
You can pretty much toss the idea of showing actual consumer market share. Why? Because if they actualy did that, it would show a different picture entirely.
For those of you who bash Apple about security when all you know is Windows.
Only Microsoft lets their users log in as ROOT.
Nifty. History of Steve Jobs and Apple..IN SPANISH
Oddly enough, it doesn’t really need translation.
Note to US readers: Apple has almost made 5% market share in the US. For the world in general, it’s not yet even crept into the top 5 manufacturers. US sales represent less than 1/3 of worldwide sales. I’m not sure these figures are much to shout about. At least the trend is positive though.
Hey, Pete Peterson!
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(I knew I recognized that name somewhere)
And Peter’s post doesn’t get deleted. ha. Quote:
“Hey, Pete Peterson! Go back to Vietnam, you commie pinko fag junkie!
(I knew I recognized that name somewhere)”
The Irony of course being that if they delete Peter’s post, they must delete my post above for quoting Peter’s post, and then they may as well delete this one too for referencing them both.
Ah the vicious cycles of web-mastering.