Dell no longer top selling brand in Irish PC market

DELL HAS lost its long-held number one spot in the Irish personal computer (PC) market following its decision to cease manufacturing in Limerick with the loss of 1,900 jobs over the next year.

Provisional first-quarter data from market research firm IDC shows that HP is now the biggest- selling brand in Ireland with Dell in the number two position.

Dell’s years as the number one exporter from Ireland boosted its local sales and it was the number one brand here at a time when it could not replicate that feat in other European countries.

The data show that PC sales in the Irish market collapsed in the first three months of this year, with just 124,835 units being shipped, a drop of 37.9 per cent compared to a year ago.

IDC found that sales of desktop PCs to consumers (-57 per cent) and notebooks to businesses (-57.4 per cent) were the hardest hit.

Across Europe as a whole, 21.5 million PCs were shipped, a drop of 10 per cent on the same period in 2008. Irish sales were the worst in western Europe and are comparable to those in central and eastern Europe, which fell by 41 per cent. Shipments to Britain fell by just 8 per cent.

“The drop in Ireland is quite specific – you have to bear in mind it was the first country to be hit by the collapse of the housing market,” said Eszter Morvay, research manager with IDC responsible for its Quarterly PC Tracker survey.

PC shipments to Ireland declined by 2.5 per cent for the whole of 2008 and Ms Morvay predicted the decline this year could be in double digits. The second quarter is traditionally a weak one, but the back-to-school period and Christmas purchases give a lift to the third and fourth quarters.

While welcoming his firm’s elevation to the number one position, Martin Cullen, general manager of HP’s personal systems group, said he “hadn’t anticipated the full rate of the Irish market decline”.

Ms Morvay said the business market has been “dead over the last year” but now the consumer market is “suffering”. While sales of notebooks and other portable devices to consumers suffered the smallest drop (-7 per cent), she said this category was growing in most other European markets. Growth is being driven by demand for netbooks and other mini-notebooks which generally sell for under €500.

Mr Cullen said he “expects the market to rebalance itself, but it will be the end of the year before we see that”. He said consumers were generally choosing brands based on price and value while technology considerations were still driving the corporate market.

The figures show that portable PCs, including notebooks and netbooks, are now outselling desktop machines by a factor of almost two to one.

Industry sources said that the annual fall in Dell sales was skewed by a large commercial notebook deal it won in the first quarter of 2008.

No one was available from Dell’s Irish operations to comment on the figures.