Apple takes no. 2 spot in Australasian PC market

On the back of its retail store expansion and Macbook Air Sandy Bridge refresh, Apple overtook Acer and Dell for the first time in any one quarter to grab the second position in the Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) PC market by unit shipments, according to new IDC figures.

The overall PC market, however, dropped by 8% quarter-on-quarter in Q3 2011 to 1.61 million unit shipments. IDC said the drop was seasonal and expected.

New Zealand accounted for 182,000 shipments during the quarter.

In Australia, aggressive promotions initiated by national retailers such as Harvey Norman's 2 for 1 sale were key drivers in encouraging demand and sell-through which pushed the market 3% higher than the same period last year. Concerns over the implementation of the carbon tax and the deteriorating European economy, coupled with unexpected shortages in the supply of AMD processors in the self-assembled PC market brought the market in below forecasts.

In New Zealand, although the Rugby World Cup was a boon to the overall economy and consumer sentiments, IT sales were affected as spending was diverted to non-IT products. 

"While most vendors' performance slowed in the third quarter, HP, in particular, took the strongest hit. There were delays in government project roll outs while HP's channels cut back in stock intake as a precautionary measure in view of market softness," said IDC market analyst, Amy Cheah.

"The unfortunate 'PSG spin off' debacle [which saw HP publically debate selling its PC division before deciding to keep it] also momentarily affected confidence in HP's strategic outlook which opened a window of opportunity for competitors such as Apple to gain share."

IDC expects the ANZ PC market to grow 10% quarter-on-quarter to 1.77 million unit shipments considering the year end seasonal sales and education rollout period.

Despite an industry-wide hard drive supply shortage resulting from severe flooding in Thailand, IDC believes most Q4 inventory orders were placed before the shortage took effect, thus Christmas sales and large education deals in Queensland and New South Wales are expected to see only minor disruption. IDC expects the situation to worsen in Q1 2012 when existing inventories are depleted before recovering in Q2 2012.