Lenovo still No. 1 PC in Asia Pacific as demand slumps
Chinese giant Lenovo is the top PC maker in the Asia Pacific region in Q2 2012, followed by Acer and Dell, as former top dog HP relegated to No. 4. Meanwhile Mac maker Apple is no where to be seen in the Top 5 PCs.
ThinkPad maker Lenovo grew over 12% in Q2, while traditional big players like Dell and HP witnessed falls of 13% and 19%, both who announced major profit slumps recently.
Transformer Prime and Google Nexus 7 maker Asus grew a massive 25% – one of the only brands to do so – as its tabs continue to grow in popularity.
Asia Pacific (PC) PC shipments totaled 30.3 million in the second quarter, a 2.6% decline compared to 2011, according to analyst Gartner’s latest figures.
The ‘Mobile PC’ category, which includes notebooks, laptops (tablets are not included) fell almost 4%, while desktop PC shipments slumped 1.7%.
This tells a different story to the success of tablets like the iPad, which are forecast to hit 2.1m sales in Australia alone this year – a 40% jump from 2011 – as predicted by analysts IDC and Telsyte.
Australia (-9.2%) saw some of the biggest declines in PC demand by country, although were not as bad as Singapore (21.5%) and Korea (12%). Mature PC markets like Australia are struggling to grow due to the proliferation of alternative devices, including smartphones and tablets like the iPad, as they can perform tasks like checking emails and web browsing which were formerly done on PCs, notes Gartner.
“Lenovo continued to pick up market share especially from HP and Dell,” said Gartner analyst, Lillian Tay.
“HP’s re-organisation and Dell’s change in its business strategy for better margins gains have affected their shipment levels.”
Vendors have made conscious efforts to control inventory in recent times as they get ready for the next gen of thinner notebooks, Windows 8 Ultrabooks in October.
However, it doesn’t appear the first spate of Ultrabooks released by Acer, Asus, Toshiba et al have ignited major demand among consumers.
But it also seems mobile computers are catching up with the number of desktops shipped – indicative of the massive mini revolution two years after the first iPad was released.
There was over 16.3 million PCs shipped in Q2, and over 14.8 m notebooks.
China’s PC market in particular slumped 5.4%, its first year-on-year negative growth ever.
“Gloomy worldwide economies have put a dampener on PC spending in the region over the past year,” said Tay.
“The wide array of alternate products entering the market is also affecting consumer spend, resulting in declining interest in PC spending.”
The pro market segment declined for the second time this year, down 8% compared to a year ago as organisations deferred major purchases due to uncertain economic climate.
However, consumer PCs grew only 3%.
“What is interesting to note is that despite much talk around the introduction of Ultrabooks, consumers did not proactively seek them out in their purchases, which is likely to be the result of prices remaining high throughout this period,” says Tay.
India and Malaysia bucked the trend in the Asia Pacific, growing their PC markets 17 percent and 21.6 percent respectively, largely driven by growth in mobile computer category.
