For 2010, the Canadian market ended the year with a strong fourth quarter (Q4) that saw continued positive growth, with unit shipments growing by 5.6 per cent over Q4 2009, good for 1,807,034 units shipped. It capped off a year that saw a recovery from weak 2009 numbers, with market growth on the year of 12.7 per cent.
Diving deeper, portable shipments continued to lead the way, beating forecasts for Q4 with 2.9 per cent year over year growth. While the unit volume of desktops was far lower, the category did grow shipments by 12.7 per cent over the year ago. And the netbook form factor continued to fall to Earth, going from 24 per cent of portable shipments in Q4 2000 to just eight per cent in Q2 of 2010.
While there have been reports that tablets like Apple's iPad could hurt traditional PC shipments, there's no sign of that in IDC's research said Tim Brunt, senior analyst, personal computing with IDC Canada.
“There's no evidence of cannibalization or anything hindering growth at this point,” said Brunt. “Anyone buying these is primarily buying it as a second device.”
Most tablet sales have been on the consumer side so far, and Brunt expects further growth as vendors begin to bring Windows 7 and Android-based devices to market. It could also be those Windows 7 devices that spur commercial interest, said Brunt.
On the overall vendor leader board, Hewlett-Packard grew its market share in Q4 by 9.1 per cent, capturing 28.2 per cent of the market. Acer fell back by 4.4 per cent, but its 19.1 per cent was still good enough for second. Dell was third at 14.1 per cent, with Apple and Toshiba rounding-out the top five.
Looking ahead to 2011, IDC sees storm clouds on the horizon. The release of Windows 7 service pack 1 should be a positive for commercial sales as enterprise customers use the stability of the OS to release pent-up need for PC refresh. However, while Windows 7 SP1 will be a positive, on the downside Brunt said Intel's Sandy Bridge recall will take a large chunk out of Q1 numbers in 2011 and drag down the year.
In conjunction with a still cautious economic climate where businesses have minimal budget for capital investment, the high value of the Canadian dollar and the overall market having already recovered from weak 2009 numbers, IDC is forecasting a decline in Canadian client PC shipments for 2011 of 5.5 per cent. Brunt said many retailers are also holding an excess of stock they haven't been able to move. For the latest updates PRESS CTR + D or visit Stock Market news Today
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