Western Europe PC market experiences strong Q2 growth

Continued renaissance

The latest figures from market researcher Gartner reveal the Western European PC market grew by 19.6 percent, year-on-year, in the second quarter. The bad news for the UK, however, is that it lagged behind other countries, such as France and Germany.

"The strong performance in the second quarter of 2010 was partly due to a weak second quarter of 2009," said Ranjit Atwal, research director at Gartner. "For a better comparison, the PC market in Western Europe grew 6 percent compared with the second quarter of 2008, indicating not only a recovery but good underlying market strength."

Consumers continued to drive demand, with the mobile sector once more to the fore. But while netbook growth looks to be tailing off, that was compensated for by growth in sales of all-in-one desktops. The market is also looking nice and competitive, with Dell in danger of being relegated to fourth place by ASUS, as has happened already in France.

Western Europe: PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for 2Q10 (Thousands of Units)

Note: Data includes desk-based PCs and mobile PCs
Source: Gartner (August 2010)

"The U.K. market remained the weakest of the larger PC markets in Western Europe with growth almost half that of France. Given the UK market was also the weakest in the downturn, its recovery had been much more muted," said Atwal.

"There is no doubt that the introduction of the austerity measures in the UK has hindered any anticipated improvement in the underlying demand for PCs. We don't expect this to change for the rest of 2010. As businesses and consumers come to terms with the potential impact of the government measures, caution is certainly the keyword across all IT markets and the PC market is currently no different."

United Kingdom: PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for 2Q10 (Thousands of Units)

Note: Data includes desk-based PCs and mobile PCs
Source: Gartner (August 2010)