Media tablets slowly booting out PCs

Apple’s iPad is doing to personal computer (PC) market what its iPhone did to the cell phone market. The latest Gartner report on worldwide PC shipments shows that media tablets are slowly edging desktops, laptops and netbooks out of the market.  

In the first quarter of 2011, global PC sales slipped 1.1% at 84.3 million from the first quarter of 2010. This is the first year-on-year decline in six quarters and is below Gartner’s earlier forecast of 3% growth in the quarter.

Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner, blamed media tablets and consumers electronics for the drop in the PC demand.
“Low prices for consumer PCs, which had long stimulated growth, no longer attracted buyers. Instead, consumers turned their attention to media tablets and other consumer electronics. With the launch of the iPad 2 in February, more consumers either switched to buying an alternative device, or simply held back from buying PCs. We’re investigating whether this trend is likely to have a long-term effect on the PC market,” he said.

Experts, however, do not expect a similar trend to play out in India. They see the Indian PC growing despite new devices making inroads into the market.

“The Indian PC market is growing better than it did last year. Tablets are a new category, at the most, people are holding back buying a new laptop in anticipation of new tabs, which they could use as a second device,” said a senior Hewlett Packard (HP) senior official on condition of anonymity.

Mukund Walwekar, managing director of Acer, also shrugged any threat from the tablets to PCs.

“I don’t think it will have much of an impact because tablets are primarily an internet consumption device. The closest competing product in the market is the netbook, which costs around Rs 15,000 — half the price of a tablet. Tablets could open up a new segment of users,” he said.

Vishal Tripati, principal analyst Gartner, feels exorbitant price of tablets could inhibit its growth in India, where consumers very price sensitive. “I do not see companies like HP, Acer and Lenovo changing their (product) strategy in the near future as far as India is concerned. Here, they are still witnessing high growth which will continue for a few more years,” he said.

The Gartner report revealed that despite HP performing below the worldwide average, it maintained leading position in the market with a share of 17.6% followed by Acer whose market share was 12.9%. Dell secured third position with 11.9%, while Lenovo was at fifth position (9.7%).