There’s been a lot of talk and ruminating in the technology industry about what segments might prove to be “recession-proof” during the current economic downturn. Initial speculation centered on the video game market as consumers were seen to be “cocooning” at home rather than opting for more expensive forms of recreation and diversion. But it looks like the smart money may have been on the smartphone market: according to research firm IDC, worldwide shipments of smartphones actually grew 4.2 percent during the third quarter of 2009 to a total of 43.3 million units.
Tag Archive: IDC
Dell Slips to Third Place in Worldwide PC Shipments
It wasn’t so many years ago when both U.S. and worldwide PC shipments were dominated by one company: Dell. But how the mighty have fallen—or, perhaps in corporate speak, embarked on a retooling phase. First, Dell lost its first-place status in worldwide and U.S. PC shipments to a resurgent Hewlett-Packard, and now—according to both IDC and Gartner—Dell has lost the number-two position in worldwide PC sales to Taiwan’s Acer, although Dell remains solidly in the number two position for U.S. PC sales.
Acer’s rise to be the second largest manufacturer of PCs worldwide is being attributed to the company’s success in the netbook and low-cost notebook computer markets.
Worldwide Mobile Phone Market Down Almost 11 Pct
Market research firm IDC has released its figures for worldwide smartphone sales in the second quarter of 2009, and while the number are an improvement over the first quarter of the year, shipments were still off 10.8 percent compared to the same quarter of 2008. And that first quarter was even worse than IDC thought: IDC has revised its shipment figures for the first quarter to a 17.1 percent year-on-year decline, even steeper than the 15.8 percent it initially reported.
PC Shipments Show First Drop in Five Years
According to research firm IDC, PC shipments were down 1.8 percent during the last quarter of 2008 and are expected to decline by more than 8 percent during the first half of 2008. The declines follow five years in which the sector almost always showed double-digit growth every year. However, IDC seems to detect what may be light at the end of the tunnel: the research firm expects small positive growth in PC shipments by the end of the year, making the total decline for 2009 somewhere around 4.5 percent.
310 Million PCs Expected To Ship This Year
The demand for PCs show no sign of abating, and thanks to emerging countries buying more of them, a continued double-digit increase in sales is likely to continue until 2010, followed by single digits until 2012.
Those predictions come from IDC’s latest Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker, which says demand will grow 15.2% this year with 310 million PCs shipping.
There’s been a change is the strength of markets, however, according to the analyst company, with Asia/Pacific (not including Japan) passing the US as the biggest PC market, with the Rest of World region, comprising Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa, and Canada, coming up fast, and expected to take second place by the end of the year.
PC Shipments Climbed at End of 2007
Growth in the personal computer market proved to be strong in the final quarter of 2007, according to new figures from market analysis firms Gartner and IDC. Although the companies use slightly different methods to quantify sales—and come up with somewhat different numbers—both agree growth was well in the double-digit range, with Gartner calculating a 13.4 percent increase for the quarter, and IDC finding 15.5 percent growth. And both firms agree a resurgent Dell has reclaimed its top spot for sales in the United States, although rival Hewlett Packard maintained its top position in worldwide PC sales.
Study: 161 Exabytes of Digital Data in 2006
A new study by IDC (commissioned by backup storage vendor EMC) took on the heady task of estimating how much digital data had been generated by the year 2006…and then tried to forecast how much digital data might occupy our collective “universe” by 2010. The results: in 2006, the world’s digital universe comprised some 161 exabytes—an exabyte is a billion gigabytes—and by 2010 the amount could reach 988 exabytes.
IDC: A Billion Cell Phones Shipped in 2006
A new report from market research firm IDC finds that cell phone shipments during 2006 reached a new peak: more than one billion units shipped during the calendar year. According to IDC, the year’s 1.019 billion cell phones represents a 22.5 percent increase over 2005 shipments, and most of the credit goes to emerging markets rather than phone-saturated areas like North America, Japan, and western Europe.
Global Handheld Device Market Shrinking
Although more than two million handheld digital devices were sold over the 2005 holiday season, research firm IDC reports that the beginning of 2006 saw the ninth consecutive decline in handheld device sales worldwide.
For IDC, “handheld devices” doesn’t include smartphones: instead, the term refers to PIMs and pocket-sized devices (either pen- or keypad-based) which are used to run applications, access data, view multimedia, and play games. The devices can can be synched with computers and may include wireless Internet capabilities. IDC counts only branded unit, and discounts all OEM sales from manufacturers.
Audio Players a $145 Bln Market by 2009?
A new forecast from IDC purports to show that the consumer market for compressed audio players
