UK PC sales in free fall

Latest Context figures show the UK is well below the European average for Q1 PC sales

Slack consumer demand for PCs in the UK has caused sales figures to plummet, according to the latest figures by market watcher Context.

The analyst has amalgamated sales reports from Europe’s major distributors, retailers and resellers for the first three months of 2011, covering some 40 per cent of all PCs bought by home and business buyers in the region.

Unit sales in the first quarter of 2011 in the UK fell by 7.7 per cent, significantly higher than the general European average of 2.9 per cent for the quarter.

This is compared with Germany and France, which saw growth in PC sales of 12.5 per cent and 1.5 per cent respectively. However two countries fared even worse than the UK – Italy with a 10.4 per cent drop in sales and Spain, with a worrying 27 per cent decline.

Jeremy Davies, chief executive of Context, said: “What is forcing Europe’s PC market down is a decline in consumer demand. Our numbers show that consumer-oriented PC sales across Europe fell 16.5 per cent in the first quarter of the year, but the UK is far more dependent on consumer demand, and here sales fell 27.5 per cent.

“The only reasons the overall European numbers are not worse are a strong business PC market in Germany, and that across Europe, for the time being at least, demand from business buyers is holding up.”

Bucking the trend were tablet PCs, which saw a whopping 910 per cent growth in the quarter, compared with desktop PCs which saw unit sales down 9.3 per cent. Netbooks were the biggest loser, falling 25.6 per cent compared with last year.

"We still have to wait until the vendors report what they shipped into their distribution channels during the first quarter," added Davies, "but with people buying fewer PCs than previously, the supply chain will be choked and there will be many distributors and retailers trying to get rid of excess stock in the months to come."