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| Falling Notebook Prices, Growing Broadband Penetration, and Strong Vendor Push to Boost Greek PC Market in 2008, Says IDC Growth continued to be driven by portable demand, with notebook shipments increasing by 39% year on year. Sustained buoyancy in the consumer market has been the key engine of this momentum, stimulated by credit facilities up to three years and aggressive retail offerings in the back-to-school period. SMBs continued to migrate to mobility as well, benefiting from attractive prices and more dedicated products with improved connectivity. Desktop shipments also recorded robust growth at 26.8%, driven by the ongoing computerization of the public sector as well as healthy demand in the consumer space, due to lower PC penetration rates. "The Christmas season is expected to be buoyant, propelling the strong recovery seen throughout the year in the Greek PC market, with overall growth forecast to reach a robust 32.5% in 2007, before decelerating to a more moderate 10.6% in 2008", said Nicolina Angelou, research analyst for IDC's EMEA Quarterly PC Research Group. Strong notebook momentum will remain the key engine of growth in the coming quarters, driven by the accelerated shift to mobility in both the consumer and SMB segments. Fierce competition between vendors will stimulate further ASP erosion, boosting growth due to the strong elasticity of demand, particularly in the consumer notebook space. Angelou said there will be three major trends shaping the Greek consumer notebook market: - Shortening product life cycles leading to the acceleration of consumer notebook renewals; - Continued expansion of the market to new users; - Multi-equipment purchases (one laptop per person). "Thanks to strong vendor push and further price declines, notebooks are expected to overtake desktops by mid-2008", said Angelou. Commercial notebook demand will also enjoy sustained momentum, thanks to a dynamic SMB segment, which will continue to opt for mobility, increasingly replacing desktops with notebooks, with SoHo customers able to benefit from aggressive retail deals in the run up to Christmas. 2008 will see vendors increasingly refining their approach to SMBs, deploying dedicated strategies both from a product and go-to-market perspective, and offering more rounded service and support as a means of differentiation. The expansion and renewal of the installed base in the SMB space will go hand in hand with the adoption of technologies such as Santa Rosa and UMTS, but the outlook for Vista adoption remains cautious overall. Following a buoyant 2007, desktop demand is expected to wane with growth decelerating into negative trends in 2008 as notebook momentum inhibits stronger growth, especially in the consumer and SMB segments. Corporate demand is expected to show moderate growth over the coming quarters, driven by both expansion and renewal of the corporate desktop installed base. Due to higher security and easier deployment and manageability - and therefore overall lower cost of ownership - desktops will remain the key computing platform in the corporate space throughout the forecast period. Desktop virtualization and energy efficiency will help vendors to differentiate in a highly competitive and concentrated market. New technologies promoting "green IT" will enjoy piecemeal adoption and will contribute to growth, but will not drive demand. IDC's EMEA Quarterly PC Tracker gathers PC market data in 42 countries, by vendor, product category, sub form factor, brand, user segment, channel, processor, and notebook screen size. The research includes historical and forecast trend analysis as well as price band and installed base. write your comments about the article :: © 2007 Computing News :: home page |