iSuppli, the tech market researcher, has raised its forecast for PC shipments this, following a surge in notebook sales in the first quarter. It now estimates that PC makers will ship 264 million units in 2007, up 11.2 per cent on 2006's 239 million units. Previously it pegged market growth for the year at 10.7 per cent.

In Q1, notebook PC shipments were 21.8 million units, advancing 23 per cent on last year (Q1 2006: 17.7 million). This was three per cent more than iSuppli had originally forecast.

The firm attributed its conservatism to "concerns that the second-quarter release of Intel Corp.'s new Santa Rosa notebook microprocessor platform might cause buyers to delay purchases originally set for the first quarter. However, Santa Rosa did not have a significant negative effect on first-quarter shipments," iSuppli analyst Mathew Wilkins said.

Notebooks will account for 40 per cent of all PC shipments in 2007, according to iSuppli.

On the back of this forecast, iSuppli is also seeking some more airtime for its thinking on flash memory-based solid-state drives in notebook PCs (SSDs). So it reissued its guidance, alongside the revised estimate of notebook shipments. You can read our article from first time around here. ®

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