The fourth quarter wasn’t pretty for Canadian PC manufacturers. According to IDC Canada shipments continued to decline, dropping by 13.8 per cent from the same quarter a year ago, a worse performance than forecast.
In fact, it was so bad the Canadian market had the largest decline in the world, according to the research firm, and was well off the global average of a 7.8 per cent decline, which was the worst global decline since the third quarter of 2001. Comparatively, U.S. shipments declined by 6.3 per cent for the quarter.
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Overall, for 2012 the Canadian market shrunk by 10.6 per cent, marking the second straight year of negative growth.
On the vendor leaderboard, IDC reports fierce competition. HP tops the Canadian market with a 24.4 per cent share for Q4, although overall it dopped 11.6 per cent fewer units on the year. Lenovo moved to second position for the quarter with 12.4 per cent share, and growth of 8.8 per cent of the year. Dell was just behind at 12.2 per cent but, like HP had a tough year, dropping 23.3 per cent. Apple was next at 11.9 per cent and a decline of 14.1 per cent, while Acer rounds out the top five with 10.2 per cent of the market and a very bad year, dropping 55.7 per cent compared to its shipments for the year previous.
According to IDC, while shipment numbers are challenging due to market saturation and competing technologies, average selling values are continuing to rise.
“While the PC market continues to decline, it is approaching a potential saturation point, and under pressure from other product offerings like phones and tablets, the silver lining is that PC manufacturers are waking up to the challenges they face,” said Tim Brunt, program manager for personal computing at IDC Canada, in a statement. “New products are being developed that are relevant to the needs to today’s consumers, the quality of these products has increased significantly, and the financial health of the industry is beginning to increase.”