Asia-Pac PC shipments up 30 pct in 2000 - Gartner
SINGAPORE, Feb 8 (Reuters) - Personal computer shipments in the Asia-Pacific region grew nearly 30 percent in 2000, research company Gartner Dataquest said on Thursday, predicting that six in 10 Singapore homes will have a PC in less than three years.
In regional countries excluding Japan, shipments of desk-based and mobile PCs grew 29.6 percent compared with 1999 to 17.3 million units.
A total of 525,018 units were shipped into Singapore last year, a moderate rise of 6.8 percent.
Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HWP - news) remained the largest vendor in the city state with a market share of 14 percent, followed closely by Compaq (NYSE:CPQ - news) on 12 percent, IBM (NYSE:IBM - news) on 11.7 percent and Dell (NasdaqNM:DELL - news) on 11 percent.
Despite Singapore being a maturing market, demand for PCs was expected to be driven by the increasing use and availability of broadband Internet access as subscription rates fall and content improves, Gartner said in a statement.
Gartner said the ``PC penetration rate for homes in Singapore will exceed 60 percent by the end of 2003''. It did not give a comparitive figure.
China continued to command the lion's share of PC shipments to the region in 2000 at 37.8 percent, representing more than 6.56 million units.
South Korea and Australia were in second and third place with 3.57 million and 2.05 million units.
China, South Korea, India, Indonesia and Thailand all posted strong growth rates of more than 30 percent, Gartner said. |
