Michael Dell predicts further consolidation in PC market
The eponymous vendor leader claims biggest three PC vendors to control 80 per cent of market in five years' time
Michael Dell has claimed 80 per cent of all computers made and sold could be from the world's three biggest PC makers in five years' time.
According to a report in Reuters, the eponymous vendor leader (pictured) this week told journalists at a conference in Bengaluru that Lenovo, HP, and Dell could collectively snaffle 80 per cent of the PC market within a period of about five to seven years.
Further consolidation and smaller players being disproportionately hurt by shrinking sales will cause the narrowing of the playing field, he believes.
Second quarter market data from Gartner finds that the three firms currently hold a cumulative 51.1 per cent of the global market. Lenovo leads the pack, with a market share of 19.7 per cent, ahead of HP on 17.4 per cent, and Dell on 14 per cent. In the first quarter the triumvirate accounted for a total of 48.8 per cent of shipments.
"In the first half of this year we outgrew the two in notebooks and we have grown now 10 quarters in a row," Dell told Reuters.
Although Dell saw its worldwide shipments fall 4.9 per cent year on year in Q2, this decline was some way behind its two chief rivals, and significantly lower than the 9.5 per cent decline suffered by the market as a whole.
In Bengaluru, the Dell leader reportedly asserted that his firm can continue to outperform the wider sector. But he added that the Texan vendor still has no interest in diversifying into smartphone space.
"We have been able to grow even though the [PC] market is shrinking and of course our business goes well beyond the device into datacentre, software, services and security," said Dell, according to Reuters.
He added: "I think there are maybe only one or two companies who make a profit in the smartphone business today and there are quite a few companies that lose substantial sums of money in the smartphone business. So, no thank you! I do not want to be in the smartphone business."