Pc Indutry

Executive Summary

The PC industry will celebrate its 35th year anniversary in 2010. From its humble beginning as hobby computer kits in the spring of 1975, the PC industry has come a long way. In 1975 less than 50,000 PCs were sold with a value of about $60M. From this limited start the PC industry has grown to unit sales of over 280M units in 2009. PC retail revenue topped $330B in 2007 and 2008, but is in a declining phase due to continued price declines and a shift to low-cost products such as netbooks.   The next table shows the tremendous growth of the PC industry in the last 30+ years. And the growth of the PC industry will continue, but at much lower rates than previously-at least in terms of unit sales.

The sheer size of the PC industry limits its growth rate, but the yearly worldwide sales will grow by over 40% in the next five years—from 231M units in 2006 to nearly 335M in 2012 or a 6.3% compound annual growth rate. Worldwide number of PCs in-use surpassed 900M units in 2005 and will reach 1.47B units by year-end 2011. Worldwide cumulative PC sales topped 1B units in 2002 and will top 2B in 2007 and 3B in 2011. PCs in-use reached 241M in the U.S. in 2006 and will top 300M in 2012.


Table 1.1   U.S. and Worldwide PC Market Growth
  1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015
U.S. PC Sales (#M) 0.04 0.76 6.6 9.5 21.4 46.0 62.0 77.1 88-90
U.S. PC Revenues ($B) 0.05 1.5 17.2 24.5 56.8 86.9 90.5 75.4 70-75
U.S. PC Installed Base (#M) 0.04 1.4 19 51 86 177 234 295 360-370
Worldwide PC Sales (#M) 0.05 1.1 11 24 58 132 207 301 400-410
Worldwide PC Revenues ($B) 0.06 3.6 29.5 71 155 251 301 300 310-320
Worldwide Installed Base (#M) 0.05 2.1 33 100 225 529 910 1,415 1,980-2,030

Yearly PC sales for the U.S. and the main regions of the world are summarized in the next figure. North America will remain the largest region until 2009. All figures are in millions of units.
Figure 1.1: PC Sales by Regions

PC revenue was growing slower... [continues]

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