Reuters has a very interesting article on the decline of the desktop PC market and the rise of notebooks (laptops). According to Reuters:
The age of the desktop PC appears to be over as its more portable cousin, the laptop, surges ahead with consumers clamoring for light-weight computers in funky designs for use at home, in cafes and on the train to work.
Not a single desktop model figured on online shopping portal Amazon.com's top 10 selling PC and hardware list the weekend before Christmas, while seven laptop models made the list.
It was yet another sign that the former dominance of desktop PCs is fading as wireless advances and lower prices make laptops the preferred option for millions of PC users around the world.
"On both price and performance, laptops are so competitive now it's surprising they weren't able to catch up with desktops even earlier," said iSuppli analyst Peter Lin.
Of course, if this is true, its good for Taiwan. Reuters continues:
Many companies eagerly awaiting the era of the laptop are in Taiwan, maker of about 80 percent of the world's laptop PCs. They include the world's top two contract manufacturers, Quanta and Compal Electronics, and two of the most aggressive laptop brands, Acer and Asustek.
While those firms have seen their market share rise, the world's top two PC makers overall, Hewlett-Packard and Dell, have seen their share shrink.
Other companies that produce parts such as motherboards for bulky desktop PCs are already switching production to parts for other electronic gadgets such as iPhones.
While laptops used to cost more than double that of a desktop with equivalent processing power, advances in technology and economies of scale have dragged prices down so much that little price differentiation exists today for most consumers looking for a daily use PC, analysts say.
"It's just evolutionary I suppose," said Gartner analyst Tracy Tsai. "Things have reached a point where the price difference is no longer as pronounced as before for many consumers, and the average person is more likely to choose the option that offers him portability over the one that doesn't."
The growth in the notebook PC market is good for Taiwanese companies since they do dominate the market globally. Of course there are a few other companies that manufacture notebooks including Inventec. HP and Dell will have to become far more competitive in the notebook market to be able to compete effectively with Asus and Acer, who seem to respond to market demand very quickly.
6 comments:
I personally use both, but I really find it hard to work quickly on a laptop.
Anyone using any significant desktop applications (which I agree is fewer and fewer these days), such as serious word processing, spreadsheets, graphic design, video editing, programming, could really benefit from two or more screens, but it's a little difficult to do with a laptop.
I wouldn't mind seeing something like a portable second monitor for when you're working some place with a flat surface. Am I the only crazy one?
Hi There Anon,
As always thanks for your comments. Actually I currently work with a laptop and when at work plug it into a 21" monitor for increased visibility of what I am doing.
However, if you are looking for dual displays on a notebook, you might try Lenovo's dual-screen ThinkPad w700ds. This was launched fairly recently. (read more here: http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2009/01/post.html)
Have a great day.
Paul
Whoa, a little googling led to two triple screen laptops...
http://arstechnica.com/journals/hardware.ars/2007/10/16/triple-screen-display-folds-up-into-briefcase
http://www.techeblog.com/index.php/tech-gadget/prime-laptop-has-three-displays
Ha ha.
I wasn't expecting that. Actually I saw the Lenovo model on a new feed a couple of days ago. It was the first time I had heard of a multi screen laptop. Go figure.
I was also thinking about the decline of PCs and was thinking maybe the netbooks will prolong their life. I mean, with a netbook you are able to synch all your information with the PC and carry around something small and convenient to travel, but your mainstay computing device is a super powerful PC. Why not?
I suppose however, the same could apply to a laptop and the laptop does give flexibility in taking your main computer home at nights and still synched with a netbook for easy travelling.
I agree you could get a laptop plus a netbook, but I think the choice you point out, desktop + netbook is something that economically wasn't feasible previously. The netbook changes the whole economics of buying a personal computer.
Before, if you're a middle income first year college student, you usually choose between a more powerful desktop or a mobile laptop and that's the end of it. You can't afford to buy both (or it's not "normal" enough to do). With netbooks, you can keep a powerful desktop and retain mobility when you really need it, and the price is so low, you really don't need to think about it at all.
In that respect, I wonder if netbooks have inadvertently saved some desktop sales and cannibalized laptop sales in that particular situation. Jerry Shen has repeated that he sees the EEE PC as a secondary computer and not directly competing with laptops--but what if it is a secondary computer that turns the primary computer away from a laptop purchase towards a desktop purchase?
FYI, an interesting graphic in the New York Times that shows how badly Taiwanese exports have been hurt in this downturn. I'm curious what the structural problems might be that
Certainly there has been a lot of bumbling by the Ma Ying-jeou administration and that has exacerbated things here. I also wonder, though, what structural problems led to this kind of vulnerability? Is there something that can be done on a macro level that wouldn't hurt long term growth and could avoid taking big hits like this during downturns?
Where's a a good, plain-speaking macroeconomist when you need one...
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