Dataquest: PC growth

In contrast, IDC also released its local PC market figures earlier this week reporting a 7.5 percent year-on-year increase.

Across the Asia-Pacific region, 5.6 million PCs were shipped, a 9.6 percent increase for the quarter on the same period last year, Dataquest said. Australia was placed number three in PC shipments in the region, shipping 512,511 units.

“To put this into perspective, a 12.5 percent growth rate compared to one of the lowest bases ever in the same period last year was nothing much to shout about,” said Andy Woo, an industry analyst at Dataquest. “On the positive side, the growth indicates that the PC market in Australia may have hit rock bottom in 2001 and is on a long road to recovery.

“Even with a flat year-on-year growth in the fourth quarter, we would expect the full year 2002 to come in around the 6 to 8 percent growth rate over 2001. End users are becoming more prudent with their limited hardware budget, so priorities are given to key business units that need upgrading while less critical areas are forced to hang on longer to their machines,” he said.

In Australia, HP took the top spot with 19 percent share; Dell was second with 10.9 percent but its shipment declined by 9.4 percent year-on-year. IBM, Acer and Toshiba made up the rest of the top five.

In the region, Legend took top spot securing 11.9 percent of the market; HP was second with 9.5 percent and IBM was third with 7.4 percent.