14 DAY TRIAL // Although the increasingly successful netbook market continues to follow its ascending path, it appears that this one segment won't be a catalyst for the worldwide PC market, according to a recently revealed report from research firm iSuppli. According to the company's latest forecast, the worldwide PC market will suffer a contraction in unit shipments for the first time since the Dot-Com burst in 2001, mainly due to a combination in failing IT spending and plunging sales of desktop computers.
“An annual decline in unit shipments is highly unusual in the PC market,” observed Matthew Wilkins, principal analyst, compute platforms for iSuppli. “Even in weak years, PC unit shipments typically rise by single-digit percentages. The last decline—in 2001—was a 5.1 decrease in unit shipments due to the extraordinary impact of the Dot-Com bust, which caused inflated IT spending levels from the previous years to collapse.”
According to iSuppli's report, the global PC shipments are expected to decline to 287.3 million units this year, down 4 percent from 299.2 million in 2008. This updated forecast goes against the company's previous report, according to which the global PC market was expected to register a 0.7 percent growth. iSuppli further details that one of the main reasons for this decline is an expected 18.1 percent plunge in the desktop PC shipments, which are said to account for 124.4 million in 2009, down from 151.9 million in 2008. For the server market, iSuppli predicts that a decrease of 9.5 percent will be recorded, with shipments falling from 7.7 million in 2008 to 6.9 million this year.
iSuppli also confirms previous reports from DisplaySearch, according to which netbook PC shipments will rise, but the company predicts a more moderate increase of about 11.7 percent to 155.97 million units, up from 139.6 million last year.