No silver lining for UK PC market

Corporate contraction could drag on for six months, warns IDC

Hardware VARs are set for a tough end to the year as IDC predicts the UK business PC market will continue to struggle.

The market watcher’s preliminary figures for 2009’s second quarter revealed UK PC shipments fell seven per cent year on year to 2.5 million.

Although IDC had previously predicted an overall 13 per cent drop, research manager Eszter Morvay said: “The consumer portable market did better than we expected.”

She added that the consumer market could expect a “healthy” end to the year.

“But on the corporate side there is no sign of improvement,” Morvay said, predicting that negative growth could drag on for the next six months.

The consumer notebook space enjoyed a 31 per cent spike during Q2, while desktop shipments suffered a 24 per cent decline. Commercial desktops slipped by a quarter and notebooks by 27 per cent.

The popularity of netbooks helped drive growth in the consumer market and they now account for about a third of consumer notebooks. But this has not transferred to the business arena, where the figure is just five per cent. Morvay added: “It is not seen as a business product.”