New Zealand PC sales plunged during the three months to the end of September, says market researcher IDC.
But analyst Darian Bird says the 14.2% fall in sales in the third quarter this year compared to the same period last year isn’t as bad as it seems.
“The third quarter last year was massive, which is why this looks a big decline, but the reality is not so dramatic.”
Nonetheless Bird says the September 11 attacks in the US can be blamed for lopping a few thousand PCs from the market. The launch since then of Microsoft’s latest operating system upgrade, Windows XP, won’t help lift sales this year, he believes.
“I don’t expect Windows XP to have a major impact until next year.”
According to Bird, sales in the third quarter of 2000 were inflated by a big Dell deal to ANZ employees. Another factor was a resumption of purchasing after a hiatus that followed a rush of pre-Y2K upgrades.
Compaq was responsible for 20.2% of New Zealand PC sales in the latest quarter, followed by Hewlett-Packard. Compaq’s market share was down from 25.3% in the previous quarter, says Bird. But he adds that it usually accounts for about 20% of sales.
IBM and Dell were ranked third and fourth, with the first local PC maker, The PC Company, in fifth place. The PC Company slipped one place in its ranking among desktop PC sellers, from third to fourth.
In the portable PC segment, Toshiba retained its lead but lost some ground. Its market share went from 30.8% in the second quarter to 28.3% in the third (31% in Q3 2000). Bird says HP, which is ranked seventh in portable sales, was the main gainer. If its market share was combined with second-placed Compaq, they come “within a point or two” of Toshiba, he says.
The PC Company, which has been making a push into the portable market, makes it into the top 10.
On the PC server front, IBM wrested the market lead from Compaq, largely through a sale to New Zealand Post, which gave it 38.8% of the total for the quarter.
Bird says total PC sales for the three quarter of 2001 lagged sales during the corresponding 2000 period by about 0.6%. They are just under the quarter-million mark, at 249,552.