PRELIMINARY results from IDC shows that strong retail demand for notebook computers boosted the sale of personal computers by 20 per cent in Singapore to 270,000 units in the third quarter of this year.

This is despite relatively poor sales at this year's Comex trade show. Trade shows are where a significant section of Singaporeans traditionally buy their computers from.

Ruben Tan, IDC's research manager, told BizIT: 'Despite mild sales results at the Comex show, the Singapore PC market met our expectations for 20 per cent year-on-year growth this quarter, in part due to ongoing demand for portable PCs sold through the retail channel.'

In the third quarter of 2006, 219,000 PCs (both desktops as well as notebooks) were sold in Singapore. Out of this amount, as many as 127,000 were notebooks and the balance 92,000 were desktops.

Mr Tan could not give the breakdown on the number of notebooks and desktops sold in the third quarter of 2007 as results were still being processed.

However, he noted that this year's results are expected to be very similar to last year's third quarter results which indicate that customers generally prefer portable notebook PCs to stationary desktops.

This has become a regular trend. In the second quarter of 2007, 241,000 PCs were sold in Singapore, out of which 95,000 were desktops and as many as 146,000 units were notebooks.

IDC predicts full year 2007 desktop sales at 397,000 units and 610,000 for notebooks. Last year, 365,000 desktops were sold along with 452,000 notebooks. Thus the sale of notebooks is expected to go up by as much as 35 per cent while desktop sales will go up by a more modest 8.8 per cent.

Mr Tan, who works for IDC's Asia Pacific personal systems research group, said that the top five vendors in Singapore tend to be, in no particular order, Hewlett Packard (HP), Acer, Lenovo, Dell and Fujitsu.

In the overall Asia Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ) market, the top vendor in the third quarter was Lenovo with a 21.3 per cent market share, thanks to its huge presence in the China market. Following Lenovo is HP (15.5 per cent market share), Dell (8.8 per cent), Acer (7.2 per cent) and China brand Founder (5.9 per cent). Mr Tan noted that government spending in Singapore was muted in the third quarter as the Standard Operating Environment (SOE) project has been delayed again until early next year.

Elaborating more on the Comex show, he noted that it was far less successful than the PC Show which was held during the second quarter.

'This was not just due to seasonality factors, but the fact that many buyers rushed to beat the GST hike, from 5 per cent to 7 per cent, which took effect from July 1 this year,' he said.

The PC Show, held in June, was the perfect opportunity for bargain hunters, Mr Tan noted. 'When Comex rolled around in early September, many who were in the market to purchase had already done so in June, leading to slower than expected sales.'

Apart from Comex, third quarter sales were driven by telco affinity deals (Acer's L320 desktop, for example) for consumers and student purchasing programmes for university students (which also fall under consumers), among other things.

Mr Tan noted that Singapore's strong economy, innovative schemes and more affordable systems are all contributors to growth of PC sales.

New efforts from existing vendors, and relatively new entrants such as the revamped Packard Bell and MSI are also causing this segment to become rather crowded and extremely price competitive, he added.

'To cater to the growing appetite for notebooks in Singapore, Sony has been a lot more aggressive in the consumer notebook space this year, especially in the third quarter,' Mr Tan noted.

'In an attempt to protect margins, vendors will increasingly look to niche segments within the consumer notebook space this coming Christmas season, such as gaming notebooks that offer better specs, at a higher price.'

However, he added that this is not to say that desktop sales will decrease as a result, since PC penetration (number of systems in the home) seems to be increasing.

'Attention (of vendors) isn't diverted away from the consumer desktop space either, with ultra-slim chassis desktops now being pushed by all the major PC vendors,' he added.

IDC's preliminary results show that the APEJ PC market totalled 16.1 million units in the third quarter of 2007, representing a 13 per cent sequential growth from the previous quarter and a 24 per cent year-on-year growth.

The overall PC market continued its impressive momentum with the region coming in 5 per cent higher than IDC's initial forecasts and all countries showing year-on-year gains. Portable PCs in particular were a key driver of that, with most markets in the region beating forecasts.

Bryan Ma, IDC's Asia Pacific director for personal systems research, noted that even emerging markets that would intuitively gravitate towards lower priced desktop PCs have shown increased interest in notebooks.

'If things keep going at this pace, the region's portable PC shipments will likely reach the 20 million unit milestone for the year,' he added.