Europe claims top PC sales spot
Published: 19 Jan 2006 09:30 GMT
Although everyone obsessed about China, Europe turned out to be a pretty good market for PC makers last year.
PC shipments to the Europe, the Middle East and Africa came to 72.6 million in 2005, or 33.2 percent of the total shipped during the year, according to research firm Gartner. North America accounted for 67.1 million, or 30.7 percent, of shipments.
This marked the first time that Europe saw more PC shipments than the US In 2004, 62.4m PCs shipped to North America while 62m went to Europe. European shipments grew 17.1 percent last year while North American shipments grew by 7.5 percent.
Shipments to the Asia-Pacific and Latin America grew at a faster rate — 26 percent — but the number of PCs shipped to both regions was lower. About 42.8 million PCs were shipped to Asia. Asia, however, produces more PCs than other regions, which explains why Intel sells more chips there than to Europe or North America.
A strong euro and demand for notebooks, particularly among consumers, lifted European sales, according to Gartner.
One of the big beneficiaries of stronger European sales was Acer, which has targeted European notebook consumers. The Taiwanese company has been the fastest-growing PC manufacturer for two years. In 2005, Acer's shipments grew by 58.1 percent and saw its market share grow from 3.4 percent to 4.6 percent.
Gartner said PC shipments grew by 15.3 percent during the year, slightly lower than the 16.4 percent annual growth rival IDC said occurred. The difference between the shipment figures from IDC and Gartner reflects the different methodologies of the two research firms. However, the figures from the two rarely differ radically.
Did you find this article useful?
57 out of 138 people found this useful
Digg
Slashdot
Del.ici.ous
Stumble
Reddit
