According to IDC’s Asia/Pacific PC Tracker, the Philippines PC market showed stellar growth in 1Q12, shipping a total of 544,000 units. This represents a sequential increase of 25% after plunging in the last quarter. The growth was possible as the situation with hard disk drive (HDD) shortages, which disrupted PC shipments in 4Q11, improved faster than expected. Several large government projects which had been delayed for months were also rolled out this quarter.
The consumer market grew 30% sequentially as mini notebook shipments spiked upwards by 52% quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) to corner 32% of the total PC market share. Mini notebooks were overlooked in the previous quarter as vendors strove to protect their revenue share by focusing on shipping larger, high-end portables. But the trend was reversed this quarter after HDD component production returned to normal levels.
According to Juan-Jin Ng, Market Analyst for Client Devices Research at IDC Asia/Pacific, “Although there were some initial worries at the start of the quarter due to the shortage of Cedar Trail processors for mini notebooks, this issue was resolved by March. Vendors were able to load heavily at this time as channels had managed to flush ageing stocks from their inventory in 4Q11.”
The commercial market in 1Q12 improved 19% QoQ to arrive at 222,000 units. Deliveries to public sector accounts such as the Department of National Registration, the Bureau of Inland Revenue and the Department of Health were the main contributors to overall commercial growth. SME shipments managed to grow 22% QoQ after being sidelined in 4Q11 as HDD shortages forced vendors to allocate scarce PC stocks to their Large/Very Large Enterprise accounts instead. However, the Very Large Business/Large Business did not perform as well this quarter as most enterprise budgets had been utilized during PC refreshment cycles in Q411.
After a strong start into 2012, IDC is expecting modest growth for the upcoming quarter. Juan-Jin adds, “As a large portion of Q1’s consumer shipments arrived in March, channels are heavily stocked going into Q2. They will likely hold off on bringing in new units until existing inventory is digested in the retail market. On the commercial end, enterprise shipments could improve as Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) companies ramp up their spending. However, overall commercial shipments are expected to be adversely affected as there has been no announcement of major upcoming projects and the large public sector rollouts in Q1 will not spill over into Q2.”
