The future looks grim for Australian PC manufacturers, as the major brands – excluding Apple Computer Corp – gobble market share. So said IT industry watcher Gartner Group at its Predicts 98 industry briefing held in Sydney this week. Nevertheless, according to Gartner’s figures, 68.2% of the market is currently held by brands other than Compaq Computer Corp (8.8%,) IBM Corp (7.5%,) Ipex (5.4%,) and Apple (5%). The vendors at most risk are the larger Australian companies, said Gartner analyst Bruce McCabe, These must spend money to maintain their brand but are unable to leverage worldwide economies of scale. They must deal with price competition from the local community of white-box PC assemblers. Other figures highlighted at the briefing included: the Australian PC market can expect continued growth rates of less than 15%; the penetration of PCs into homes is currently hovering around 36%, but households account for 52% of the 5.8 million PCs in use in Australia.
