Central and Eastern European PC market up 27.2% in 2004
As the country with the largest population, Russia was the largest single country market, constituting just under half of the region's PC shipments in 2004. Poland was the second largest market with 13.0% of volume, and Ukraine the third largest with 8.3%. Russia was also one of the fastest growing markets, which reflects the general trend of markets being more dynamic further east. In the new EU member states, the popularity of laptops has taken off, and these machines accounted for more than 30.7% of shipments in the Czech Republic, 26.1% in Hungary, and 22.4% in Slovakia last year. Nevertheless, with the exception of Slovakia, the laptop markets grew fastest in the east, with the Russian laptop market exploding a dramatic 184.1% in shipments in 2004 - almost three times the growth rate in Slovakia (64.8%) and Ukraine (63.1%), and more than three times the rate in Romania (59.3%).