Led by a holiday season featuring price cuts of unprecedented duration, the US PC market established a new record of nearly 20.7 million units shipped in the fourth quarter of 2009, resulting an on-year growth of 24%. Other regions also experienced solid growth, particularly emerging markets in Asia/Pacific and Latin America, leading the global market to 15.2% on-year growth for the quarter, according to IDC.

This marked the first quarter of double-digit volume growth since the third quarter of 2008. The fourth quarter results cap a strong second half of 2009, further cementing signs of a market revival and ending the year with on-year growth of 2.3%. (continuare…)

Worldwide PC shipments surpassed 90 million units in the fourth quarter of 2009, a 22.1% increase from the fourth quarter of 2008, according to preliminary results by Gartner. It was the strongest on-quarter growth rate the worldwide PC market has experienced in the last seven years although it should be noted that the numbers are compared to a very weak quarter a year ago due to the economic downturn at that time, Gartner pointed out.

“These preliminary results indicate the recovery of the PC market on a global level,” said Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner. “The US and Asia Pacific had already shown positive indicators last quarter, however the fourth quarter 2009 results were more concrete evidence of the recovery. The Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region entered the economic downturn later than the US and Asia Pacific, so it has been slower to recover. The EMEA region returned to positive shipment growth for the first time in three quarters, and Latin America and Japan also recorded shipment increases.” (continuare…)

Apple

Apple reportedly plans to launch a 22-inch touch-enabled all-in-one PC in 2010, in addition to the current non-touch 21.5- and 27-inch iMacs, according to a Chinese-language Commercial Times report.

Apple will outsource production of the 22-inch model to Quanta, with Taiwan-based Sintek Photronic supplying the touchscreen panels.

US PC vendors may gradually be replaced, says Acer founder

Acer founder Stan Shih has responded to comments that Acer can only compete in the US market using a low-price strategy and cannot effectively develop its brand value by saying that the US PC brands may gradually be replaced by brands from other regions as PC prices continue to drop, resulting in lower overall gross margins.

Shih used the example of the TV industry pointing out that originally US brands were ahead, but as the industry advanced, US-based brands such as RCA have mostly been replaced by TV brands from Asia.

Shih added that when the US share of the global PC market starts to drop, Taiwan’s IT industry will play an even more important role in the global market with cheap and good quality own-brand PCs.