PC demand expected to continue to flag

Market researcher Dataquest on Monday warned of continued slow PC sales, with worldwide sales growing 10.7 percent this year, or about four points lower than 2000. Sales in the United States are projected to be downright dismal with--at best--flat year-over-year growth.

Dataquest analyst Martin Reynolds said the researcher's predictions are based on "the assumption sales in the fourth quarter will be better than the rest of the year. If this doesn't happen, things could be much worse."

In fact, should a recession hit the United States instead of a second-half recovery analysts had been banking on, Dataquest expects negative growth compared with 2000.

Although the economy is a factor, it is not the only reason behind the PC sales crisis. "The U.S. PC market by and large is saturated," Reynolds said. "There really isn’t much of an opportunity to sell systems and growth is slowing down." --Joe Wilcox, Special to ZDNet News