Appropriately following yesterday's article, "America - The not-so High-Speed and Mobile," is today's report from Red Herring: US Losing PC Pace. It is important to note that I'm not dissing America (after all, I live here). As a concerned citizen and technocrat, I perceive this as my duty to report any situational inadequacies in an objective and accurate manner.
The report found that overall sales in the SMB (Small-to-Medium Businesses) and even the lucrative enterprise market to have slowed down considerably.
Some interesting findings (compiled by the Gartner Group) from the article are as follows:
- Average days of [PC] Inventory increased from 2004 to 2005 (as much as 30% for some vendors).
- Asia Pacific (42.8 million units in 2005) and Latin America (14.7 million units in 2005) are the fastest growing regions in terms of PC Sales worldwide.
- PC shipments in Europe, Middle East, and Africa (a total of 72.7 million units) surpassed that of the U.S. by 5.7 million units. Those regions and the U.S. account for more than half of the 218.5 million PCs shipped worldwide in 2005.
The top three Global PC retailers remains Dell (16.8% market share), HP (14.5% market share), and IBM-Lenovo (6.9% market share). While the article opened with a rather pessimistic overtone, "The rest of the world is soundly beating the United States in terms of the pace at which personal computers are being shipped," I personally do not think that disappointing PC sales is a true measure of this country's competitiveness (unlike Broadband and Cellular adoptions, which could have competitive implications, but more on that later).
The Red Herring article cited a "distinct preference for notebook" in the U.S. as a reason for the soft demand for desktop PCs. Another reason is simply that the U.S. market is comparatively more saturated than the rest of the world. PCs have been a fixture in American homes since the late 1970's. Some of the regions mentioned in the article (e.g. Africa, Middle East) are only beginning to install basic public amenities like phone lines and clean, running water. So, it's no surprise to me that every country but the U.S. is experiencing higher-than-expected growth in PC sales.
Broadband Access and Mobile Communication Services, on the other hand, are as much a public utility as power or water these days. A country's wealth and competitiveness are based on the accessibility to those very utilities. A PC is merely a tool (a tool in this country, a luxury in others) used in conjunction with those public utilities to generate value and wealth (e.g. e-Business, online learning, collaborative research). That is why I see Broadband Access and Mobile Communication Services as fundamental assets to, not just America but, every country in the world.
A high PC Sales figure, while nice to have, is only one of the many indicators of Economic Strength. One does not need to read too much into it.
This article is by YC from the Technocrat Soapbox - Guest Blogger
YC @ The Technocrat Soapbox
Comment Preview