Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : Technical analysis for shorts & longs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Johnny Canuck who wrote (39715)	6/9/2003 8:23:43 PM
From: Johnny Canuck	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 69953

IDC lowers sights for PC sales By Michael Kanellos Staff Writer, CNET News.com June 9, 2003, 3:47 PM PT Although PC shipments slightly exceeded expectations in the first quarter, the hazy economic forecast has prompted market research firm IDC to lower its PC forecast for 2003 and 2004. The research firm said Monday that it now expects total worldwide shipments of desktops, notebooks and servers containing Intel or AMD chips to reach 145.2 million in 2003, a rise of 6.3 percent over the previous year's tally. Earlier this year, IDC predicted that such shipments would grow by 6.9 percent. IDC also dipped its forecast for 2004 shipments, which are now expected to increase by 10.3 percent, rather than by 10.9 percent. At the same time, the aggregate value of PC shipments this year is expected to decline 2.4 percent, but that looks likely to be followed by growth of 3.5 percent in 2004. Previously, IDC had expected revenue from shipments to fall 1.8 percent in 2003 and rise 2.9 percent the year after that. "PC demand remains limited, despite improvements from last year," said Loren Loverde, director of IDC's PC tracking service, in a statement. "We've seen only limited recovery in business shipments, while consumer growth has slowed in recent quarters, and public sector shipments are falling. Growing consumer and business confidence, as well as system replacements, will boost growth in the second half of the year, but we won't see double digit growth until 2004." Invite Michael Kanellos into your in-box Senior department editor Michael Kanellos scrutinizes the hardware industry in a weekly column that ranges from chips to servers and other critical business systems. Enterprise Hardware every Wednesday. As usual, demand in the Asia-Pacific region and in North America will continue to drive the PC market, while Europe and Japan will limp along. The U.S. market was actually stronger than expected because of public sector buying, IDC said. Rival research company Gartner Dataquest issued a similar forecast in May. The firm upped its second-quarter forecast to 6.4 percent, but slightly lowered its forecast for the entire year, to 6.6 percent. But both firms are predicting growth in the range of 6 percent, which would represent a marked improvement over 2002, when PC shipments increased by 1.5 percent. In 2001, PC shipments shrank for the first time in over a decade.