Global PC sales make big gains

A GLOWING picture of the global personal computer industry, with strong worldwide growth, emerges from two newly-published surveys.

Studies by US market research companies Gartner and IDC show shipments of PCs growing by up to 15.5% in the second quarter with strong demand in Europe.

Market leader Dell Computer, headed by Michael Dell, now holds 18.3% while number two Hewlett-Packard has 15.4%. It is the fifth consecutive quarter of double-digit growth for total shipments.

IDC says sales grew 15.5% to 39.7m units from a year ago while Gartner says worldwide PC shipments rose 13.3% to 42.8m. The disparity is explained by the firms' different methodologies.

'Despite warnings from some sectors of the information technology industry, the recovery seems to be holding steady for now,' said Roger Kay, vice president of client computing at IDC. 'Consumers remain excited by digital media and commercial organisations are in the full flood of PC replacement.'

The results were released after technology giant IBM reported its sixth consecutive quarterly rise in net profit. That result tallied with the market research and came on the back of stronger hardware sales. PC shipments rose 17.5%, putting it in third place.

Some of IBM's other sectors were disappointing, however. Software sales, for example, were flat - and fell 4% on a constant-currency basis. IBM chief financial Officer Mark Loughridge said the recovery was patchy.

'Customer spending continues to improve, though not uniformly across all segments and regions,' he said, although he was broadly positive, believing the information technology industry would grow over the coming quarter by between 4% and 5%, its best since 2000.

IBM's second-quarter net profit rose to $2bn (£1.08bn) from $1.7bn a year earlier on revenue up to $23.2bn from $21.6bn. Sales of computer hardware grew 12% to $7.4bn.

However, the surveys on PC sales and IBM's strong result are unlikely to calm the nerves investors have been feeling in recent weeks.

There have been disappointing results in some 20 software firms and sentiment was further eroded by Intel's revelation earlier this week that its stockpile rose 15% in the second quarter from the first quarter.

The outlook is hazy at best, with Intel chief financial officer Andy Bryant saying he expects 'a pretty typical second half of the year', traditionally a time of stronger IT spending.