Thursday August 6, 05:04 PM
PC sales in western Europe fall 3 pct in Q2 -Gartner
LONDON, Aug 6 (Reuters) - PC sales in western Europe fell 3.3 percent in the second quarter, with only the popularity of netbooks stopping a collapse in the market, and will not resume growth until 2010, research firm Gartmore said on Thursday.
Total PC sales in western Europe fell to 13.3 million units after a 21 percent plunge in sales to businesses was only partly offset by a similar percentage rise in the consumer market.
'You have to view the market with and without mini-notebooks to understand the true picture,' said Gartner (NYSE: IT - news) principal analyst Ranjit Atwal.
'Without mini-notebooks, the market would have declined more than 15 percent, but given the new routes to market and price points of these PCs, they have managed to prevent a more severe decline.'
The popularity of netbooks -- mini-notebooks sold through contracts with mobile phone operators as well as direct to consumers -- helped Acer move into second position in the UK behind Dell (NASDAQ: DELL - news) , and retain its lead in France and Germany.
Netbooks have helped keep the global PC market afloat, but their cheaper prices have put pressure on profits, analysts have said..
Atwal said PC sales would not recover until next year as consumer demand stayed weak, despite Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT - news) 's Windows 7 becoming available in the fourth quarter.
'By the end of this year all of the markets will be on the way down, if not at the bottom, so we don't expect recovery until next year,' he said.
(Reporting by Paul Sandle, editing by Will Waterman) Keywords: TECH PC/
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