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"PC Shipments Increase as Rebound Continues
By GARY MCWILLIAMS
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
July 16, 2004; Page A10
Strong demand for personal computers in Europe and replacement purchases by U.S. corporate customers boosted PC shipments by at least 13% and possibly by more than 15% in the second quarter, according to estimates by two market-research firms.
The reports suggest the PC rebound that began last year still has room to run, as replacement purchases by businesses and sales in Europe and Asia benefit from continued price declines.
According to International Data Corp., world-wide shipments in the quarter ended June 30 rose 15.5% from a year earlier, to 39.7 million units. The U.S., Europe and Asia each had gains of more than 10%, IDC said.
"There should be solid, double-digit growth in the second half" of this year, said Loren Loverde, an analyst at IDC. The rise of the euro against the dollar and sharp price drops have contributed to strong demand across Europe for better than a year, he said.
Separately, Gartner Inc. said it believes world-wide shipments rose 13.3% to 42.8 million units from 37.8 million a year earlier. "We continue to see replacements being a major factor," said Charles Smulders, a Gartner vice president.
The two companies' numbers often differ slightly because they use different methods to calculate shipments.
Both researchers said Dell Inc. remained the world's largest PC seller and increased its lead over second-place rival Hewlett-Packard Co. Gartner put Dell's share of the world-wide market at 16.5%, up from 15.3% a year earlier. H-P's share rose to 14.3% from 14% a year ago, the researcher said. International Business Machines Corp. held onto third place world-wide, with a 5.9% share, up from 5.7% a year earlier, Gartner said.
Gartner estimated Fujitsu Ltd. and its European Fujitsu-Siemens joint venture was fourth world-wide, with a 3.5% share, while Taiwan's Acer Inc. was fifth, with a 3% share.
In the U.S., shipments rose 10.9% to 13.4 million, according to IDC. While notebook PC sales are growing sharply, desktop PCs have rebounded amid better corporate demand, IDC said. "For the last couple of quarters, we've had a gradual increase in enterprise buying. We think that will continue," Mr. Loverde said.
Dell and H-P remain the top two sellers in the U.S. The battle for third place in the U.S. is between IBM and Gateway Inc., which acquired low-cost PC marketer eMachines Inc. this year."
Write to Gary McWilliams at gary.mcwilliams@wsj.com1
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