Jeff, Amy, re: W/W PC penetration
One of the problems is we tend to look at raw numbers and not demographics.
Over half of the world population has serious issues of infra-structure, discretionary spending and need.
A good example is India, a country with 1/6th of the World population. (930 million).
Yet Intel estimates PC sales to India at 1.5 Million units in the ending year. While India statistically represents fertile ground for PC growth, there are many underlying reasons for the slow adoption rate.
The US, of course, represents the opposite spectrum. PC penetration in the work place has essentially saturated and is primarily an upgrade market. Even in the home, ownership has reached 50% of households and probably represents less than 50 million potential new users, including multiple PC ownership. In this country I think the key to PC sales is obsolesence and upgrade.
BTW, one of the most interesting statistics I found was from IDC. According to them, forty percent of home web users are age 12 - 17!
Jeff, regarding "shrink wrap" PCs in grocery stores. I think you were being facetious. Probably more like stacks of boxes at Best Buy next to the VHS and CD audio players. ;-) |
