Dataquest lowers PC forecast for 2002
Semiconductor Business News
(07/18/02 20:34 p.m. EST)
SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Here's more bad news for the electronics industry: Dataquest Inc. lowered its forecast for PC growth in 2002, due to an ongoing slowdown in the sector, according to a report released late today.
"Vendors should plan for worldwide unit shipment growth to be approximately 2% to 4% in 2002, down from our previous estimate of 5% growth,” said Charles Smulders, who tracks the market for Dataquest of San Jose, in a statement. "Economic uncertainty continued to undermine business confidence, which has been further compounded in the United States by the Enron and WorldCom MCI accounting scandals," he said.
And while hopes were raised in the first quarter that the PC industry was showing the first signs of recovery, the industry suffered a slight setback as worldwide PC shipments declined 0.6% in the second quarter from the same period last year, according to preliminary results from Dataquest.
Worldwide PC shipments totaled 29.9 million units in the second quarter of 2002, while PC shipments in the United States reached 10.6 million units, an 8.5% decline from the previous year.
"The market undoubtedly saw the effects of inventory overhang from the first quarter, but at the same time we have yet to see any significant return to corporate buying, and in the consumer market buying appears to have fallen back further in some regions," Smulders said.
At the same time, International Data Corp. (IDC) is still stick to its forecast--at least for now. Despite hopes that worldwide PC shipments would increase for the first time in a year, total shipments were down 0.5% from a year ago to 31.1 million in the second quarter of 2002, according to IDC in Framingham, Mass.
Although shipment growth improved more significantly in the prior two quarters, the June quarter marks the fifth consecutive decline. The 0.5% decline compares with forecast growth of 1.3% while, sequentially, shipments were down 7.8% from the first quarter vs. a forecast decline of 6.2%.
As the education and holiday seasons get going in the back half of the year, the slightest puff from a recovering economy could propel the year to meet IDC's forecast for mid-single-digit growth for 2002. Thus, IDC retains muted optimism for the third and particularly the fourth quarters, but says a fragile economy and uncertain political outlook remain wild cards. |
