From Bloomberg:
PC Shipments Drop in 3rd Qtr as Slowdown Moves Abroad (Update2)
By Peter J. Brennan
San Jose, California, Oct. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Worldwide personal-computer shipments dropped in the third quarter as a slump in U.S. sales spread to Asia and Europe, two market-research firms said.
Gartner Inc.'s Dataquest unit said global PC sales dropped 12 percent to 30.6 million units from 34.6 million in the year- earlier period. IDC said third-quarter shipments declined 14 percent to 29.1 million units.
``It confirms some of the weakness that we had out there,'' said Dan Scovel, a semiconductor analyst at Needham & Co.
The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and a typhoon near Taiwan disrupted production and hampered demand at PC makers such as Compaq Computer Corp., Gateway Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. Unit sales declined for the second quarter in a row, as consumers and businesses held off purchasing new machines on concern the economy won't recover soon.
``Europe and Asia have joined the U.S. in the tank,'' said Roger Kay, an analyst for IDC. ``They have followed us into a consumer-based PC recession a year after we went into it. It took them awhile.''
Third Decline
In the U.S., total PC sales fell for a third-consecutive quarter, dropping 19 percent to 10.9 million units, Dataquest said. Japan is going the same direction.
``The market in Japan is really bad,'' said Kitty Fok, an IDC analyst in Hong Kong. ``The drop was definitely in the double digits.'' IDC has not finished compiling data on the Japan market, Fok said.
In the rest of Asia, the PC market grew 1 percent from a year ago, mainly on increases in China.
China's PC market, which accounted for 43 percent of the total 5.3 million shipments in Asia outside of Japan, grew 8 percent from a year ago, IDC said. Demand in the rest of Asia shrank by 12 percent from the same period last year.
Dell Computer Corp. remained the world's biggest PC maker by unit shipments. The Austin, Texas-based company widened its worldwide market share to 13.8 percent, compared with 11 percent in the same period last year, San Jose, California-based Dataquest said.
The computer maker increased shipments by 11 percent to 4.23 million units, while the next biggest PC makers had shipment declines ranging from 17 percent to 31 percent, said Gartner.
Dell on Oct. 4 said it would meet its fiscal third-quarter profit forecast of 15 cents to 16 cents a share on revenue of $7.2 billion to $7.6 billion for the period ending Nov. 2. Last year, Dell earned 25 cents a share on $8.3 billion in revenue.
Compaq, HP
PC shipments at Compaq, which is being acquired by Hewlett- Packard, fell 31 percent to 3.18 million from 4.62 million units a year ago, said Dataquest. Compaq remained the second-largest PC maker, with 10.4 percent of the market, compared to 13.4 percent a year ago.
``In addition to the Sept. 11 events, we believe the company was adversely affected by an at-first uncertain reaction to the HP/Compaq merger announcement,'' said Charles Smulders, vice president of Gartner Dataquest's Computing Platforms Worldwide Group.
IBM and Hewlett-Packard, the third and fourth-largest PC makers, saw their worldwide unit shipments decline 17 percent and 25 percent respectively, Dataquest said.
Shipments at Gateway, which is pulling out of European and Asian markets to concentrate on the U.S., fell 33 percent in the U.S. to 810,000 units, Dataquest said.
In the second quarter, Dataquest said shipments fell 1.9 percent.
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