Australian PC sales still growing strongly: Gartner

Australia's PC market is still going gangbusters, recording second-quarter growth of 14.4 percent and sequential growth of 8.6 percent in latest Gartner statistics.

Andy Woo, principal analyst for hardware and systems at market research firm Gartner, said the Australian PC market had ended the first half strongly.

"Demand was strong from both the professional and consumer space," he said.

Second-quarter sales were a good predictor of the rest of the year's performance. Another period of double-digit growth could therefore reasonably be expected, Woo said.

Mobility and portability were driving the growth, with mobile PCs alone recording year-on-year growth of 36 percent for the quarter ending 30 June, he said.

Woo said the results were indicative of a perceptual shift. As the price of notebook computers and other mobile PCs dropped towards the desktop price point, users began to use different purchasing criteria.

"Users are beginning to embrace mobile PC as the platform of choice," Woo said.

HP led the market, with 19.7 percent market share and 29.8 percent year on year growth.

Dell took pole position, with Acer, IBM and Toshiba taking third, fourth and fifth positions respectively. Dell grew 37.5 percent to take 12 percent of the market.

Acer grew a whopping 59 percent year on year, to swallow 7.8 percent of the market. Toshiba grew strongly, recording a 33.3 percent increase, but could only manage a 5.3 percent slice of the pie.

IBM actually lost market share, shrinking 0.3 percent to hold 6.5 percent of the Australian market. However, Big Blue grew a healthy 29.1 percent across the whole Asia-Pacific.

PC shipments across the whole Asia-Pacific region were also strong, increasing 16.5 percent year on year and 2.1 percent in consecutive quarters.

China, India and Thailand were the biggest consumers with growth rates of more than 30 percent. Together, those nations made up 60 percent of all PCs shipped in the Asia-Pacific, Gartner figures said.

South Korea and the Philippines were the only Asia-Pacific countries whose PC markets did not grow year on year. Gartner attributed the lack of growth in those nations with weak consumer demand and a turbulent presidential election respectively.

Across the Asia-Pacific, Lenovo took back the number one spot from HP. Lenovo grew 22.3 percent to take 10.5 percent of the market. HP grew more strongly at a rate of 34.6 percent across the region to achieve 10.3 percent market share, Gartner figures said.

IBM took third place with 7.4 percent market share. Dell came fourth, with 6.9 percent market share and 39.5 percent growth. Fifth place-getter across the Asia-Pacific, Founder Electronics, grew 70.7 percent to take fifth place.