AsPac PC market grows 36% in second quarter

MANILA, Philippines - The personal computer (PC) market in the Asia-Pacific region (excluding Japan) grew 36 percent in the second quarter of 2010 compared with the same period last year to reach 27 million units, with nearly all countries posting double-digit growth rates.

Data from research firm International Data Corp. (IDC) also showed that the PC market grew 15 percent during the April to June 2010 period compared with the first quarter this year.

The region was just one percent below forecast, as stronger-than-expected desktop PC shipments helped offset the shortfall in portable PCs, IDC said.

According to IDC associate vice president of Asia-Pacific devices and peripherals research Bryan Ma, heavy demand for notebooks will still be a key driver in the upcoming years despite potential competitive pressure coming from media tablets like Apple’s iPad.

Ma noted that portable PC shipments in markets like China and Indonesia came in short of IDC’s aggressive forecasts for the second quarter. Fortunately, Thailand was able to recover more quickly than expected toward the end of the quarter as the political turmoil in the prior months subsided, thus helping the entire market there. Singapore was also on track despite earlier concerns about limited sales at the quarterly PC show.

“Hong Kong was a bit slow given early notebook purchases and channel stocking in the previous quarter. But the retail channel remains a key driver, with some vendors shipping heavy volumes toward the end of the quarter in order to prepare for the summer promotions,” IDC Asia-Pacific client devices research manager Kathy Sin said.

China’s Lenovo continued to lead the region with a 20.3 percent market share during the second quarter, and posted a 45 percent sales growth. HP reduced its share from 16.2 percent to 11.6 percent, as its number of units shipped dropped three percent.