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Gartner reports Western Europe desktop shipments down, portable PCs up in Q2 2012
When it comes to technology and the end of a financial quarter, you can bet your wage there'll be an analyst report or two letting you what's what. And according to Gartner's latest estimates for Western Europe, PCs didn't fare too well in Q2 of this year, with a 2.4 percent decrease in shipments compared with the same period in 2011. Consignments of mobile PCs (read: not tablets) grew by 4 percent, while desktops floundered, dropping 12.8 percent. Of this, a minor growth of 0.4 percent was recorded in consumer PCs, while the professional market decreased by 5.3 percent. Among the big hitters, HP remained at the top of the pile despite losing some market share, and Acer remained in second position with a mild increase in the same. ASUS put in a healthy performance, moving the company up to bronze medal position, while Dell dropped off the podium to fourth. The vendor statistics for the whole region were echoed in France in Germany, but during the quarter Apple managed to break into the top five in the UK market. Meike Escherich, principal analyst at Gartner, attributes the overall performance to economic uncertainty in the region, as well as lackluster demand in the wait for Windows 8 machines. We don't want to spoil all the fun, so a comprehensive breakdown of the numbers awaits you at the source link.
Apple sales up in Europe, despite overall PC slide
PC sales in Europe are dismal, according to a Gartner report that was highlighted in an early morning post on Gigaom. In fact, PC sales in the Western Europe market dropped 11.4 percent year-to-year to only 14.8 million units. That sounds like a cause for despair if you're a PC maker, but not if you're Apple. Apple's sales in the same quarter actually rose by almost 20 percent year-to-year, bucking the trend that other PC manufacturers are seeing. Taiwanese PC manufacturer Acer was particularly hard hit by the slide in PC sales, seeing a year-to-year drop in sales of over 45 percent for the third quarter of 2011. Much of that drop is attributable to a lack of demand for netbooks -- possibly due to the increased mindshare of tablets -- and inventory issues. The Gartner report, written by analyst Meike Escherich, notes that arch-rivals Apple and Samsung stand to improve their respective positions in the Western European market in the future. According to Escherich, "With brand becoming more important as buying criterion in the PC market both of these vendors have a strong PC and cross device proposition. This will enable them to tackle the top three even more in 2012." In this horrible economy, it looks like it's a good time to be Apple.
Apple vaults into top 5 PC maker spot in UK, Western Europe
Earlier this week, Gartner issued a press release about the Western European PC market. For most PC manufacturers, things aren't looking good. For the first quarter of 2011, PC sales in the region were down 18 percent year over year. However, as usual, Apple has bucked the trend. For the same period, Apple's Western European PC sales were up 10-15 percent in the same markets. That growth helped the Mac maker spring into the top five PC vendor list in both the UK and Western Europe. "Apple made its debut among the top five vendors in Western Europe, displacing Toshiba in the first quarter of 2011. Apple was the only one among the top five vendors to increase shipments, with volumes for mobile PCs growing 32 percent in the first quarter of 2011," Gartner said. The top five PC makers for Western Europe are now HP, Acer, Dell, Asus and Apple; in the UK, the top five are HP, Acer, Dell, Toshiba and Apple.
Report suggests 64 GB, 3G iPad is top seller
The 64 GB Wi-Fi + 3G model is the most popular iPad 2 model according to market research firm Context. The top-of-the-line model accounted for a third of all iPad 2 sales in Western Europe. The runner-up in this sales race is the entry-level 16 GB Wi-Fi only model, which grabbed 22 percent of all iPad 2 sales. Combined, these two models account for more than half of all iPad 2 sales in the region. Overall, Apple was, once again, the dominant tablet with 80 percent market share in the opening quarter of 2011. Context mobile computing analyst, Salman Chaudhry predicts the iPad will remain #1 in Western Europe, but will face increasing competition from Android tablets. The Android effect is already taking its toll on iPad sales -- according to Context, Apple's tablet dropped five percentage points from Q4 2010 to Q1 2011. [Via GigaOM]
iPad will have 'dedicated tariffs' on O2 UK, Orange and Vodafone also doing Western Europe and Australia
A bevy of identically worded UK carrier announcements has emerged in the wake of Apple's statement about the iPad's delayed international release. The good news is that you'll be able to take your pick from O2, Orange or Vodafone, though the bad news, by the sound of their robotic PR, is that there probably won't be too much price differentiation in their eventual offerings. Naturally, we'll have to keep waiting until at least the May 10th pre-order date to find out how much an iPad will set us back with either of them. Concurrent with its UK announcement, Orange has revealed it'll also offer iPad plans in Switzerland, France and Spain, while Vodafone adds Germany, Italy, Spain and Australia. We've also heard from an insider at O2 that the network operator will not itself stock the iPad, with only Apple's retail, web and "authorised dealers" offering the device for purchase. [Thanks, Rob and anonymous O2 tipster]
