Aaron Lee, Taipei; Joseph Tsai

 

Demand for enterprise PCs is expected to be significantly impacted by the US government's plans to reduce its spending. Major enterprise PC brand vendors including Hewlett-Packard (HP), Dell and Lenovo are expected to be affected, according to sources from PC players.

Since PC demand in the consumer market has already been seriously impacted by the weak economies in the US and Europe, if the US government proceeds with plans to reduce spending, the enterprise PC market, which most brand vendors believed would help save overall PC shipment growth, may not be able to perform as well as expected, which could cause notebook brand vendors to further reduce their shipment forecasts for the second half, the sources noted.

Dell has announced its second-quarter results with revenues of US$15.7 billion, a growth of 1% on year with net profits up 63% from US$545 million in the second quarter of 2010 to US$890 million.

For the third quarter, Dell forecast that its revenues will maintain at the same level as in the second with its 2011 revenue prediction changed from an on-year growth of 5-9% to a drop of 1-5%.

Sources from notebook makers also pointed out that overall notebook shipments in the third quarter will only see a sequential growth of 5-10%, dropping significantly from 20-25% in previous years, while shipments in the fourth quarter may see no growth sequentially.

As Dell is reducing its revenue forecast for the second half, the sources believe this also serves as a warning to other first-tier enterprise PC players. In the second quarter of 2011, HP was the largest enterprise notebook player worldwide with a global market share of 22%, while Lenovo trailed second with a share of 19%, and Dell third with 16% share.