While it has been debated which PC manufacturer is considered the market leader in the past, one constant in terms of PC sales is that they continue to be strong in China, despite waning interest in the rest of the world. It shouldn't be too surprising, then, that the country was at the top of the PC market last year, according to a recent IHS (News - Alert) iSuppli PC Dynamics Market Brief.
This is China's first time in this position and, although it only beat out the U.S. by a narrow margin of three million units, it's unlikely that will change in the coming years. This is largely because China's PC market has "distinct characteristics" that set it apart from other countries, according to the report, namely a sizable untapped rural market and "unique consumer-purchasing patterns."
Indeed, both desktops and notebooks sold evenly in China throughout 2012, bucking the trend seen in other countries where desktop sales lagged behind notebooks.
“The equal share of shipments for desktops and notebooks in China is unusual, since consumers in most regions today tend to prefer more agile mobile PCs, rather than the bulky, stationary desktops,” said Peter Lin, senior analyst for computer platforms at IHS. “The relatively large percentage of desktop PC shipments in China is due to huge demand in the country’s rural areas, which account for a major segment of the country’s 1.34 billion citizens. These consumers tend to prefer the desktop form factor.”
Still, even China's most remote rural areas can't resist worldwide PC trends for long, and IHS says that by 2014, the country's desktop-to-notebook ratio will more closely match the worldwide 36 to 64 percent ratio.
Other areas in which China currently stands out from the rest of the worldwide PC market include: its proportion of consumer and commercial PCs, which also sits at 50-50, compared to 65-35 percent elsewhere; a preference for 14-inch notebooks; and a notably lower attach rate of PCs with a pre-installed OS — less than 50 percent, compared with 90 percent in mature markets in other parts of the world.
China does match the rest of the world in terms of weakening interest in PCs, however, as its residents also turn to more agile mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones to meet their computing needs.
Edited by Rory J. Thompson
