European rivals outstrip UK PC market

Morvay: the UK PC market has struggled from the collapse of the financial sector

The UK PC market continued to struggle in 2009's closing quarter as western European counterparts return to growth, research has found.

Preliminary figures from market watcher IDC reveal UK PC shipments in Q4 fell 1.7 per cent annually to 3.8 million. Notebook shipments were up 2.3 per cent year on year to 2.9 million, while the desktop market slumped 12.8 per cent, with 878,000 units shipped.

Acer remained the UK's leading manufacturer in Q4, holding about a fifth of the market. HP swapped places with Dell to take second spot. The PC giants held about 19 and 17 per cent of the market respectively.

Eszter Morvay, IDC's EMEA research manager for personal computing, revealed the UK market had fallen well short of its three per cent growth projection.

"When the crisis came, the emerging markets collapsed, but now they are back to double digit growth," she said. "Western Europe has performed in a more solid way and has been very stable for the past couple of quarters. That is why the recovery is going to take longer."

The UK market's 1.7 per cent Q4 contraction is almost three times worse than the western European average of 0.6 per cent. But the German market appears to be back in rude health, posting an eight per cent increase, while France also enjoyed a two per cent jump.

Morvay explained that dwindling demand in key verticals has hit the UK PC market hard.

"The UK is really struggling from the collapse of the financial sector, that has been a key contributor," she said.