Sales of PC units up ... or down

By RICHARD WOOD

Research company Gartner has issued sales figures showing a buoyant industry and sharply contradicting those released by competing researcher IDC last month.

According to Gartner, total year-on-year growth for the New Zealand PC market was 14.1 per cent in units, and 20.8 per cent in dollar terms.

IDC's figures showed a slight decline in unit terms, and 5 per cent growth in revenue.

Gartner analyst Andy Woo acknowledged a "clear difference" between the numbers. He said this happened often and it was good to have "different views of the market".

Both companies include desktop PCs and notebooks as well as "Intel Architecture" servers in their figures. The only stated difference was that Gartner did not include servers US$25000 ($58,700) in value.

IDC researcher Darien Bird said there would be only a handful of such systems in NZ. It came down to different methods in producing the figures.

Hewlett-Packard marketing manager Joanna Burgess said the difference between the researchers figures was a "huge variation".

She said she would be surprised if the market had grown by 14 per cent.

"We felt the market was pretty flat, so when we saw the IDC figures they kind of made sense to us. But we only really know what we sell."

Burgess said HP in New Zealand subscribed only to the IDC figures and used them "almost as a bible".

Colin Brown, managing director of leading local PC assembler The PC Company, said the market was quite strong last year.

He said Gartner's figures indicated a smaller market than IDC overall and, taking into account component shipping data, he had tended to agree more with Gartner's figures.