Annual sales of PCs grow 38% in Brazil
Valor Econômico - 02/20/2008
Personal computers' sales in Brazil grew 38% last year, end closing the period with 10.7 million units sold, which placed the country in the fifth position in the ranking of the largest international markets for PCs, with potential to achieve the third position in 2010, according to the IDC consulting data. The country also consolidated its leadership in the Latin American market, with 47.3% sales, facing over 19.5% of Mexico, the runner-up. Nevertheless, the installed base of computers is still larger among the Mexicans. According to IDC analyst Reinaldo Sakis, much of the Brazilian growth was caused by the entrance of new manufacturers into the market, such as Philips and Sony (Sony started making its Vaio notebooks in the country), in addition to other minor companies. Although there is still room for expansion, Sakis observes there are many challenges to the manufacturers, mainly to the new brands. One of the main obstacles is that the growing competition reduces the exposition space of the brands among retailers. According to the IDC, desktops continued to lead sales in number of units. There were 9.1 million machines sold, 28% more than in 2006. In spite of that, notebooks presented faster evolution: the sale of the portable PCs grew 153% in the year, with 1.5 million units sold. The IDC survey shows that the sales of computers that bring no trademark and have an uncertain origin - the so-called gray market -, continue falling, but according to Sakis they may not be below the level of 30% of the total, in case there is no change in the consumption habits. Among these habits there would be the decision of the consumer to buy a machine regardless of the evidences of tax evasion. The sale of machines bringing no trademark represented 46.4% of the total of PCs sold last year in the country. In 2006, the proportion was 50.8%.