SOHO And Mobile PCs To Fuel PC Growth

According to the latest preliminary forecast by Gartner, worldwide PC
shipments are projected to total to 366.1 million units in 2010, a 19.7 percent
increase from 305.8 million units shipped in 2009. Worldwide PC spending is
forecast to reach $245 billion in 2010, up 12.2 percent from 2009. This forecast
is more optimistic than Gartner's December 2009 forecast, which anticipated

13.3 percent growth in PC shipments in 2010.

Gartner anticipates all regional markets will return to growth and exhibit
more normal seasonality in 2010. The market will remain robust with unit growth
continuing to increase strongly over the next few years, as home PC demand
accelerates and professional replacements rise in the recovery from the global
recession. "The PC industry will be overwhelmingly driven by mobile PCs, thanks
to the strong home growth in both emerging and mature markets," said George
Shiffler, Research Director, Gartner. According to Shiffler, mini-notebooks are
again the forecast to boost mobile PC growth in 2010, but their contribution is
expected to decline noticeably afterward, as they face growing competition from
new ultra-low-voltage (ULV) ultraportable laptops and next-generation tablets.
Desk-based PC shipment growth will be minimal and limited to emerging markets.
Gartner expects mobile PCs to drive 90 percent of PC growth over the next three
years. In 2009, mobile PCs accounted for 55 percent of all PC shipments. By
2012, the company expects mobile PCs to account for nearly

70 percent of shipments.

Apple's announcement of its upcoming iPad has created much discussion in the
marketplace regarding market opportunities for traditional tablet PCs and
next-generation tablet devices. Gartner's initial thinking is that vendors could
ship up to 10.5 million traditional tablets and next-generation tablet devices
worldwide in 2010. "Vendors can no longer afford to just think in terms of
traditional PC form factors or architectures. With the rise of Web-delivered
applications, many users no longer need a traditional PC running a resident
general-purpose operating system and fast x86 CPU to satisfy their computing
needs. Apple's iPad is just one of many new devices coming to market that will
change the entire PC eco-system and will overlap it with the mobile phone
industry," said Ranjit Atwal, Principal Analyst, Gartner

"New challenges are arising that will extend the PC eco-system, increasing
choice and competition. Ultimately, it will be the consumer who decides just how
far that eco-system extends and at what rate the PC industry grows," concluded
Atwal.

DQC News Bureau