Blighty's PC biz braces for another rocky ride

IDC has more than halved UK PC shipment forecasts for 2012 on the back of falling demand across much of the commercial space, particularly in public sector.

The bean counter had expected growth of 5.4 per cent year-on-year but has downgraded this to just two per cent or 10.9 million boxes being sold into channels.

"If you look at all the individual market segments, they have all been revised downward," said IDC research manager Eszter Morvay.

Commercial sector growth has been cut from 4.9 per cent to 0.8 per cent, with the public sector sales estimated to decline eight percent, while SME and education shipments are forecast to shrink by 1.5 and 1.4 per cent respectively.

But the corporate enterprise tier of the UK is tipped to grow 2.8 per cent, said Morvay, as "enterprise renewals were still pretty healthy in Q4, and there is still a large XP installed base that ays yet to migrate to Windows 7".

Sales in the consumer market however - which have been in free fall since Q3 2010 - are expected to return, with shipments into retailers touted to rise 4.5 per cent, albeit lower than the 5.8 per cent IDC initially expected last year.

The analyst said that consumer PC growth was zapped by falling demand, the inventory glut in 2011 and more recently the HDD crisis but Windows 8 and a recovery of the situation in Thailand should boost shipment.

Morvay said desktops, notebooks and Windows-based tablets were included in the revised forecast. ®