African ICT market analyst firm BMI-TechKnowledge reports that the South African PC market has maintained year-on-year growth.
In its latest PC quarterly figures for the period January to March 2004, BMI-T says there was 56.5% year-on-year growth in units to about 300 000, while the market increased 56.6% in terms of value to R2.7 billion.
Laurika M"oller, ICT analyst and author of the report, says that in Q1 2004, desktops showed an increase of 51.9% year-on-year, while laptops and notebook recorded an increase of 73.1% for the same period.
"Servers showed positive growth of 78.4% during this period. The x86 server market recorded negative growth if one measures growth sequentially," adds M"oller.
The report indicates that the desktop market recorded another healthy quarter in SA. As expected, increasing business spending and attractive bundles promoting home digital entertainment fuelled overall desktop growth.
There were four major deals driving the growth in PC sales, one of which was GautengOnline. Other major drivers were the fact that corporates had to upgrade their hardware, consumer buying and a steady rand exchange rate for the previous three quarters. During the past 9 months, the rand hovered between R6.60 and R6.85 to the dollar.
"Considering that the major corporate renewal wave was prior to 2YK and the lifecycle of PCs has been stretched beyond three to four years, we should expect roll-outs to accelerate throughout the year 2004 and even into 2005 as business confidence restores," concludes M"oller.
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