Notebooks rode a massive wave of demand in summer, according to new IDC data. Shipments of mobile processors attached to the systems jumped 35.7 percent compared to the spring and grew more than three times faster than for desktop processors, which advanced 11.4 percent at the same time. Server processors like Intel's Xeon and AMD's Opteron saw their sales grow by 12.2 percent over the period.
Despite a major phone launch, Apple's iPhone lineup was just edged out by Research in Motion's BlackBerry devices in US sales during the spring, according to IDC. Despite a high profile launch, the iPhone 3GS came in second while the BlackBerry Curve series took the lead. Of the top five, three were BlackBerries and included the original Pearl in third place as well as the AT&T-only Bold in fifth place. Apple's iPhone 3G came in fourth.
Apple has sunk a full position in the US computer market during the spring, according to early estimates by IDC. The Mac producer is expected to have dropped from fourth place in the winter to fifth in the spring as it should have shipped 12.4 percent fewer computers than it did a year earlier, falling to 1.21 million Macs. Its market share is poised to remain the same at 7.6 percent but will have been eclipsed by Toshiba, which could jump over a full percentage point to ship 7.7 percent of PCs in the US.
Only about a tenth of computer buyers would consider using netbooks as their main systems, ABI Research says in a new study. About 11 percent of Americans asked about the devices say they would use one of the small but low-cost portables as their only or primary computer while majority at 79 percent only consider a netbook a companion device to either a main desktop or regular notebook. The more difficult controls and lower performance are seen as sufficiently high-enough barriers that they preclude many from considering netbooks as more than occasional PCs.
IDC is projecting worldwide PC shipment growth of 15.2 percent in 2008, reaching 310 million units. The analysis firm predicts that growth will remain in the double-digits through 2010, followed by high single-digit growth through 2012, boosting annual shipments to over 472 million in 2012. Meanwhile, the fall in average PC selling price will be offset by an ongoing transition to sale of notebooks, which generally cost more than desktops. IDC's report also says that the Asia/Pacific region excluding Japan (APeJ) surpassed the United States as the region with the largest PC market in total annual shipments at the end of 2007.
Growth in the mobile phone industry is expected to slow to the single digits going forward from this year, according to market research firm IDC. Last quarter saw a rise in unit sales of 11.6-percent, with the previous holiday quarter fluctuating between 18- and 30-percent. Despite the slowing growth, more than 300 million mobile units were sold during the quarter, which is a record for any quarter, historically. Overall, 1.14 billion phones were sold worldwide, which is 12.4-percent more than the year prior.
This year should represent the first where notebooks overtake desktops in units sold for the US, says new data from research firm IDC. The company notes that sales of portables in in the US climbed by 21 percent last year to 31.6 million systems while desktops dropped by roughly 4 percent, to 35 million. This rate should continue long enough to place notebooks on top sometime this year, IDC notes. The momentum should also lead to a similar change worldwide by 2009 and may lead to notebooks representing more than two thirds of all business (66 percent) and home (71 percent) computer sales just two years later, in 2011.
