PC market grew 13.4% in Q1 2004

Worldwide PC shipments are projected to grow by 13.5% in 2004, boosting market size to over 175 million units, according to IDC's Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker. Rising unit growth and an incremental shift toward higher cost configurations are expected to lift shipment value to $194.5 billion during 2004 on growth of 9.2%. Higher growth expectations for 2004 have had relatively little impact on growth rates for 2005 and subsequent years with shipments expected to grow by nearly 11% in 2005 and roughly 8% from 2006 to 2008. Growth in shipment value is expected to hover in the 3-5% range during the remainder of the forecast.

Worldwide shipments of desktop PCs grew by 13.4% year on year in Q1 2004, up from 9.6% in the fourth quarter of 2003, while portable PC growth slowed to 28.5% in the first quarter from more than 35% in the second half of 2003. The strong growth in desktops, which continue to represent more than 70% of worldwide PC shipments, helped boost growth expectations for total PC shipments in 2004 by 2.1% to 13.5%.