PC market collapses in first quarter

The sales decline in retail and the absence of governmental IT projects seem to have brought about a plummeting of the Romanian PC market in the period since the beginning of this year – with Dell Romania – the local subsidiary of the second-largest PC producer worldwide, being the latest player to announce a deterioration of the market in the first quarter of the year. “In the first quarter of the calendar year, which almost overlaps with Dell’s fiscal quarter, the significant decline noticed in the fourth quarter of 2008 was confirmed,” said Mihai Guran, country manager of Dell Romania and Bulgaria. “Considering that the market fell by over 60%, the company’s results were not outstanding, either,” he added, citing data from research firm IDC (International Data Corporation). Internationally, Dell reported a 63% profit decline, to 290 million dollars, and a 23% sales decline in the quarter ended on May 1st, to 12.34 billion dollars, and warns that the PC market has yet to bottom out. Fujitsu Technology Solutions had previously announced its first-quarter sales had been down 20% in the context of the economic crisis and as a result of frozen governmental IT&C projects.