Canadian PC market grows in Q2 as U.S. retreats

Canada’s PC market recorded modest growth in the second quarter of 2011 according to IDC Canada, but it’s a positive turnaround from negative growth in Q1 and outpaced the global growth rate, also providing a sharp contrast to the continued decline in the US.

IDC Canada’s PC shipment numbers for Canada show 3.4 per cent growth year over year, with shipments of 1,534,171 units. That’s better than the global growth rate of 1.9 per cent. In the U.S., shipments were down 4.9 per cent.

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Breaking the numbers down, portables once again led the way with 10.6 per cent growth, accounting for 1,010,482 of the units shipped. Volatility continued on the desktop side, with an eight per cent decline, year over year. Within the portables space, the once-hot mini-notebook continued to decline, down 35.9 per cent. The Windows-based tablet market is beginning to take off though, with the nascent category recording 328 per cent growth.

“We’re still seeing huge gains on the consumer side,” said Tim Brunt, senior analyst for personal computing with IDC Canada. “It’s amazing our consumer numbers continue to lead the charge

While the consumer market continues to be the engine driving the PC market, the commercial market is also showing signs of life with growth of 6.6 per cent. Large enterprises led the way with 22.1 per cent growth, but continued weakness in public sector sales tempered the gains.

“In government and education we’ll see continued weakness,” said Brunt. “The only thing holding those numbers together now is health care spending, but actual government numbers continue to decline.”

Pent-up hardware refresh demand and Windows 7 migration continue to drive commercial numbers, said Brunt, as is lower pricing. An interesting trend is emerging in the numbers though, with portables overtaking desktops in the commercial space for the first time.

“If you go back two years it was 38.8 per cent for portables and now it’s 51 per cent, so that’s pretty significant,” said Brunt.

On the vendor leaderboard, HP hung onto top spot with 24.2 per cent of the market, ahead of Acer at 18.2 per cent. Dell, Apple and Lenovo round-out the top five. However, in the portables segment Acer nudged past HP for first, 22.9 per cent to 21.7 per cent.

Follow Jeff Jedras on Twitter: @JeffJedrasCDN.

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Jim Love, Chief Content Officer, IT World Canada

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Jeff Jedras
Jeff Jedras
A veteran technology and business journalist, Jeff Jedras began his career in technology journalism in the late 1990s, covering the booming (and later busting) Ottawa technology sector for Silicon Valley North and the Ottawa Business Journal, as well as everything from municipal politics to real estate. He later covered the technology scene in Vancouver before joining IT World Canada in Toronto in 2005, covering enterprise IT for ComputerWorld Canada. He would go on to cover the channel as an assistant editor with CDN. His writing has appeared in the Vancouver Sun, the Ottawa Citizen and a wide range of industry trade publications.

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