IDC Projects Strong PC Growth in 2005-2006 for APEJ Region

Taipei, Sept. 23, 2005 (CENS)--International Data Corp. (IDC) recently raised its forecasts for personal computer (PC ) shipments in the Asia-Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ) region, in response to the market's strong sales performance during the second quarter of 2005.

IDC announced that it now expects 40 million PCs to be shipped in the APEJ region in 2005, representing an annual growth of 14.8%. This will be followed by 44.9 million PCs in 2006, or a growth of 12.2%. Although desktops will continue to dominate over 75% of the unit shipments in the next two years, notebooks are the hot spot of the PC industry, with a staggering 35.7% annual growth in 2005, compared to 10.2% for desktops.

Institutional investors estimated that several Taiwan-based information technology (IT) hardware makers actively deploying their sales in the Asia-Pacific market would be the greatest beneficiaries, including Hon Hai Precision Ind. Co. Ltd. (the world's largest maker of barebone PCs, connectors, and game consoles), Asustek Computer Inc. (world's largest maker of motherboards and a leading notebook PC contract producer), Acer Inc., Giga-Byte Technology Co., Ltd., Elitegroup Computer Systems Co., Ltd. Etc.

Industry sources said that Hon Hai has been one of the most aggressive companies in developing the Asia-Pacific market. Ho Hai recently rented a computer assembly plant in Australia from Hewlett-Packard (HP) and won contract orders for consumer desktop PCs. Hon Hai recently also started assembling special-specification computers for HP in India.

In addition, Elitegroup's motherboards enjoy high-speed sales growth in India; Asustek's Asus-brand notebook PCs have jumped to be the No. 4 brand in mainland China; while Acer has become the No. 5 computer brand in the Asia-Pacific area.

"Sales of notebooks heated up in the past quarter amid the low-price strategy of major brands," said Bryan Ma, associate director of personal systems research at IDC Asia-Pacific. "And in the entire PC market (including desktops), mainland China and India will continue to be huge engines for growth through the forecast period, but one should not ignore the growth potential in emerging markets such as Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh."


IDC pointed out that mainland China would continue to play a key role in the region, accounting for 45.7% of the total PC units to be shipped in 2005. India, the second-largest market in the region, will have the highest growth rate among all the countries in the region, at 30.1% in 2005 and 25.6% in 2006.

Challenges still exist though, IDC said. High oil prices will continue to be a variable, especially for Southeast Asian countries where government subsidies are being debated, but IDC does not expect Hurricane Katrina's effects in the United States to ripple over to the global or Asia-Pacific economies.

APEJ PC Shipments by Form Factor (2004 - 2009) Unit: 1,000 units
Form Factor	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	Compound Annual Growth (2005-2009)
Desktops	27,915	30,722	33,943	37,612	41,929	46,822	10.9%
Notebooks	6,136	8,326	9,958	11,478	13,086	14,848	19.3%
X86 Servers	807	932	1,023	1,132	1,261	1,458	12.5%
Total	34,859	40,030	44,924	50,221	56,295	63,128	12.6%
Source: IDC, September 2005