PC sales to fall, notebook demand to strive in 2009

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Mon, 12/15/2008 10:37 AM  

With notebooks becoming more popular and affordable, their sales grew this year by 65 percent and will continue strong next year, although this will not make up for an overall decline in sales of personal computers, an association says. 

Overall computer sales are expected to fall on the back of a drop in sales of desktops because of weaker purchasing power, despite continued growth in notebook sales, according to the Indonesian Association of Computers Business (Apkomindo). 

Potential buyers check out computers on display at a Jakarta shopping center. With notebooks becoming more popular and affordable, sales grew this year by 65 percent, with strong growth anticipated next year. This will not make up for an overall decline in the sales of personal computers. (JP/Arief Suhardiman)

Suhanda Wijaya, the association's newly elected chairman, said at the weekend that total PC sales in 2009 were forecast at around 2.2 million units -- of which 1.2 million would be desktops and 1 million notebooks. 

The sales forecast for notebooks represents 10 percent growth from this year's sales estimate of 900,000 units. However, the forecast for sales of desktops reflects a 20 percent decrease from the estimated 1.5 million units sold this year. 

Last year, a total of 1.85 million personal computers were sold with desktops making up the lion's share at 1.3 million units. 

In contrast to computer sales, sales of servers are expected to remain steady. 

The number of servers sold in 2007, estimated sales in 2008 and projected sales for 2009 are the same at 20,000 servers annually, Suhanda said. 

Suhanda said the drop in computer sales next year would be temporary because of the unfavorable global economic situation, but the long-term outlook for the industry remained positive. 

"The market penetration of computers in this country is still very low, around 3 percent, and with a population of 230 million this means the computer industry has a huge market to explore," he said. 

He cited as an example a large computer expo in November, which attracted thousands of visitors over five days, and at which sales increased by 30 percent to Rp 195 billion (US$16.25 million) from Rp 150 billion in the previous year's exhibition. 

Brands manufactured in Indonesia include Zyrex, Axioo, Mugen, and Byon. 

National growth in computer sales is usually at 20 to 30 percent every year, said Merry Harun, deputy chairman of Apkomindo. She said businesses had to strengthen their partnerships if they wanted to return to the regular annual growth in the near future. 

The association is working on building the industry by creating a more conducive business environment for its 2,500 members, Suhanda said. 

One way it supports the industry is by bridging communication with the government. 

Existing regulations require a computer business to have an industrial license even if the business is a small one and only sets up one or two computers a day. 

"This has slowed down the speed of the business cycle," he said. 

"But the government has listened to our comments, and they have come to realize that requiring a small business to have an industry permit is not helpful to the business sector." 

According to International Data Center (IDC), the computer market in the Asia-Pacific region (excluding Japan) grew 12 percent year-on-year in the third quarter of 2008, reaching a record 20.2 million units. 

The main portion of market share in the Asia-Pacific region was held by Lenovo, with 18.2 percent, followed by HP and Dell, with 14 percent and 8.9 percent, respectively, according to IDC. (iwp)