Global PC sales up 13 p.c

FRAMINGHAM, Mass.: The worldwide

PC market continued its expansion in the first quarter of 2006 with

year-on-year growth of 12.9 per cent despite an expected decline from growth of

15.9 per cent in 2005, according to IDC's

Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker.






Nearly all regions were inline or slightly ahead of forecasts for the first
quarter, helping boost worldwide shipment

growth for 1Q06 to 12.9 per cent, slightly higher than IDC's March forecast

of 11.8 per cent. Portable adoption remained a key trend in all regions and

consumer growth appeared relatively strong following the holiday season.






HP and Gateway saw notable surges in growth in the first quarter while growth
for Dell and Fujitsu Siemens slowed considerably - particularly in their core

markets. HP appears to have benefited from channel efforts and aggressive

pursuit of consumers while Gateway made gains in the public sector in addition

to the consumer market. The field of leading vendors performed fairly well in

the quarter with market performance inline or ahead of expectations, whereas

Dell may have focused on profitability at the expense of volumes, especially in

the United States.






"Market growth ahead of forecasts in almost all regions reflects continuing
strong demand," said Loren Loverde, director of IDC's Worldwide Quarterly

PC Tracker. "While this bodes well for the short term, Dell's relatively

slow growth may set the stage for more aggressive pricing in coming quarters.

While this would help drive volumes, it would not help profitability."






"The U.S. PC market was slightly lower than forecast with about 5.3 per
cent year-over-year growth versus a forecast of 6.7 per cent, with both desktop

and notebook PC shipments growing-0 slightly slower than expected," said

Bob O'Donnell, vice president of Clients and Displays at IDC.






"This quarter saw some important shifts in market share with HP and Gateway
outperforming the market and gaining share, while Dell sales were relatively

flat and Lenovo slipped out of the Top 5."






The Asia
Pacific region
maintained robust year-on-year growth of over 20 peer cent

for the third consecutive quarter. Strong year-on-year growth in China and

Korea, combined with continued demand in Thailand and the Philippines despite

the political disruptions there, helped boost regional growth.






Vendor Highlights





Dell
- Dell
remained the clear market leader with a share of 18.1 per cent in the

first quarter, although the company appeared to lose some momentum. First

quarter growth of 10.2% worldwide was slightly behind the market while growth in

the United States slowed notably to less than 1% from almost 9% in 4Q05 and

double-digits for the prior two quarters (and fell behind the market for the

first time). Strong growth in Asia/Pacific, including Japan, PRC and India, as

well as a strong showing in major markets in EMEA, helped boost Dell's

international results.