PC Sales Hit By Insufficient Demand, Not Just Sandy Bridge Flaw

That PC sales would be hit by the flaw found in Intel chipsets months ago was an obvious consequence, but it looks like it was not the only, or even the main, cause behind strained PC shipments in the EMEA region.

IDC decided to take a look at how the PC market progressed in the EMEA region (short for the part of the world composed of Europe, Africa and the middle East).

Its findings were not exactly surprising, but they did turn out to be a slight bit less flattering than initially anticipated, albeit not to an overly high degree.

Overall, a decrease in PC sales, on-year at least, was expected after the strong growth in the first quarter of last year (2010).

As found by IDC, shipments fell 9.6% year-over-year in 1Q11, with a total of 24.1 million units sold across the region.

The main reason was soft demand in the consumer segment, although the commercial/corporate one did seem to evolve better, although not by too much.

"Continued softness in the consumer space remains the primary reason behind this quarter's shortfall across most countries in Western Europe,” said Eszter Morvay, research manager in IDC's EMEA Personal Computing group.

“The current momentum around Media Tablets, as well as Smartphones, clearly continued to drive consumers' attention away from PCs, shifting spending to these hot new devices while PC renewals are put on hold. However this "wait and see" attitude is temporary, as PCs remain a must-have and the primary computing platform in the home."

Of course, the recall of all motherboards and notebooks based on Intel's Sandy Bridge chips did not help sales.

As for what will come next, consumers will keep shifting to mobile devices like tablets while SMB investments will remain cautious, further constraining sales (probably) although the year-over-year comparison with the first half of 2010.