The worldwide PC market continued to slow in the fourth quarter of 2010 due to a softening consumer market, competing products like media tablets, and strong year ago sales, market research firm IDC has noted.
Despite a holiday season marked by a long promotion cycle and highly competitive price points, the global PC market saw shipments rise only a modest 2.7 percent year on year during 4Q10, according to the IDC Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker. Fourth quarter growth was slightly less than a projected increase of 5.5 percent, but shipments of 92.1 million for the quarter still were the largest ever. Total shipments for 2010 reached 346.2 million, an increase of 13.6 percent that was fueled by a strong recovery in the first half of the year, a release from IDC noted.
A key cause of less-than-expected growth was a softening demand in the Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) market, with shipment growth falling into single digits following a recent peak of more than 30 percent a year ago. Also, the US market declined 4.8 percent year on year, while other regions continued to experience market expansion, albeit at a slower pace than in recent quarters.
Here is a link to the complete IDC release:
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