By Martin Vedris
SYDNEY: GfK data backs up Toshiba Information Systems Division general manager Mark Whittard’s comments earlier this week that the desktop PC is dead — since June last year, notebook PC unit sales volume increased by 38 per cent while desktop PC unit sales went backwards by four per cent.
The GfK data is for the Australian retail market and is MAT June 07 versus June 08, but the percentage change in units is only part of the story.
Over the same period the retail dollar sales value of notebook PCs increased 17 per cent while desktop sales value recorded a zero increase over the period.
Interestingly GfK data also shows that at the start of 2002, retail desktop PC unit sales accounted for 80 per cent of the computer sales volume in Australia, while notebooks languished at 20 per cent.
Since then notebook PC sales increased at the expense of desktop PCs and by 2004, notebook PC retail sales had caught the desktops. Now notebook PC retail sales are approaching the 80 per cent mark while desktop PC sales are correspondingly falling to around 20 per cent.