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| Gartner Dataquest Says Latin American PC Shipments Declined 8 Percent in Second Quarter of 2002 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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SAN JOSE, Calif., August 29, 2002 - As economic conditions worsened in the region and market uncertainty reached its peak regarding Hewlett-Packard's acquisition of Compaq, Latin America PC shipments in the second quarter of 2002 declined 8.3 percent from the same period last year, according to Dataquest Inc., a unit of Gartner, Inc. (NYSE: IT and ITB). Latin American PC shipments totaled 1.548 million units in the second quarter of 2002, down from 1.689 million in the second quarter of 2001.
The new HP suffered a 50.5 percent decline in the second quarter of 2002 (see Table 1), but it still shipped more than twice as many units as its nearest competitor. IBM was in the No. 2 position, while Dell, the No. 3 vendor, grew 30.7 percent in the quarter. "The announced acquisition of Compaq by HP had an adverse impact on Compaq PCs, as prospects decided to wait and see which product lines were surviving and how the combined company was going to operate," said Luis Anavitarte, vice president and research director for Gartner Dataquest's Latin America group. "As Dell continues to grow, other top-tier international vendors must dramatically improve their ability to adapt to market changes rapidly, and at the same time continue to be highly focused in market segments, pricing and channel strategies." Table 1 Latin America PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for 2Q02 (Units)
Note: Table includes desk-based PCs and notebooks. Hewlett-Packard and Compaq are reported as one company.
Brazil, which accounted for 48.3 percent of all PC shipments in the region, had PC shipments of 746,980 units in the second quarter of 2002. While Brazil still leads the region in PC shipments, it experienced a slight decline of 0.7 percent in the quarter. Argentina continued to experience a drastic decline, as shipments dropped 81.5 percent in the region.
Source: Gartner Dataquest (August 2002) Mexico was the No.2 country in Latin America, but it suffered a shipment decline of 16.7 percent. Compaq-branded systems struggled in the country as its shipments dropped 61 percent. IBM and Dell managed positive growth in the country, while nonbranded system builders grew 27.6 percent. "If vendors are not aggressive in specific professional market niches, where opportunities can be found, the second half of the year will continue to be weak for the PC industry in Latin America," Anavitarte said. "The postponed recovery of the U.S. economy will continue to impact all countries in the Latin America region." This information is produced by Gartner Dataquest's Computing Platforms Latin America group. The group provides research on key aspects of the dynamic PC, server and printer hardware markets in Latin America. The focus is on regional and country issues in the top eight Latin American markets and the Rest of Latin America (ROLA) category, where Central American and Caribbean countries are grouped. To subscribe to this program, please call 408-468-8000. Gartner Dataquest is the recognized leader in providing the high technology and financial communities with market intelligence for the telecommunications, semiconductor, computer systems and peripherals, document management, software and services sectors of the global information technology industry. About Gartner |
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Contact: Tom McCall Gartner +1 408 468 8312 tom.mccall@gartner.com |
