International Data Corp., Framingham, MA, said this week that the world PC market was expected to grow 7.2 percent in the third quarter representing a 24.8 percent increase in overall demand compared to the same period in 1998.
The global research and information provider said it expected the PC market expansion to continue with increased global consumer demand remaining steady spurred by declining PC prices, economic stabilization in Asia and the strong U.S. economy.
“Prices keep coming down and consumer interest in PCs keeps going up,” said John Brown, research manager of IDC's Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracking. “IDC believes
that consumer demand combined with the traditional seasonal uptick in sales will
result in very healthy global demand this quarter.”
The company reported that Japan's year-over-year growth rate was the fastest at 39 percent for the second quarter, and it said there were expectations for continued strong performance for the second half of 1999. It also cited the growth of Internet shopping as well as interest in smaller desktop computing devices as likely market motivators across the board in the United States, Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) and Western Europe.
IDC said that the Asia/Pacific region's continued economic resurgence was expected to drive its third-quarter growth to 34.3 percent over the same period last year with flat sequential growth. China, India, Korea, and Australia were projected as the likely drivers. However IDC warned that it still believed some issues in Asia — including political unrest in India, Indonesia and Malaysia as well as slowing growth in China — could still inhibit future expansion in the region.
