Australian PC market grows 8.8% in Q2

The Australian market for traditional PCs — including desktops, notebook and workstations — grew 8.8% during the second quarter to 1.07 million units, IDC estimates.

Growth was driven by a 16.1% year-on-year increase in shipments for the commercial market, which offset a slight 0.4% decline in the consumer segment.

IDC attributed the decline in consumer sales to factors including lower consumer confidence, the increasingly elongated upgrade cycle for traditional PCs and the ongoing shift in web use from PCs towards smartphones.

Desktop sales remained mostly flat, with a mere 1.3% year-on-year growth, IDG said. By contrast, notebook shipments grew 12.5% year-on-year, due to strong demand for ultraslim and convertible notebooks — sales across these categories grew 28.4% and 26.8% year-on-year respectively.

“Robust growth of ultraslim and convertible notebooks shows that Australian consumers and businesses are willing to pay a premium for the latest thin and light notebooks,” IDC Australia Market Analyst for Client Devices Research Sean Ashari said.

HP maintained its lead in the overall market, with a 15.7% year-on-year increase in shipments for the quarter to 314,000, representing a market share of 29.3%.

But second-ranked Dell posted the largest growth of the top five vendors with a 20.9% year-on-year increase in shipments to around 218,400, for a market share of 20.4%.

Lenovo meanwhile overtook Apple to take the number four position, with an 11.6% year-on-year growth in shipments to 184,500. By contrast, sales of Apple computers fell 9.1% over the same period to 129,700. Rounding out the top five, Acer recorded a 20.1% increase in shipments to 95,900.

Image credit: ©Nmedia/Dollar Photo Club

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