PC sales in Malaysia drop by 25 per cent

According to the IDC Asia-Pacific PC Tracker, the Malaysian PC market also declined 16 per cent year-on-year to 684,000 units in 3Q2011 but under the MCMC programme, 123,000 netbooks were shipped in the same quarter the previous year.

Setting aside the inorganic decline, the Malaysian PC market was still relatively healthy. "Distributors have expressed more confidence and have increased their shipments of new PC models. At the end user level, price drops further invigorated consumer spending, especially on higher-end skews with Core i5 processors where prices dropped to as low as US$574," said Ng Juan Jin, market analyst for client devices research at IDC Southeast Asia.

PC processor manufacturer AMD Athlon had a standout quarter with PC shipments growing 20 per cent sequentially. Ng commented, "AMD caters largely to the low-end market and cut prices of its E series lineup by 10 per cent". The aggressive pricing strategy saw sales of E series PCs increase 26 per cent from the previous quarter and will likely drive down the average selling values of Intel models in the coming quarters."

The fourth quarter of the year however is expected to suffer further decline. "Distributor inventory levels are still high while sellout is not encouraging on the retail front compared to the previous quarter. Vendors are not expecting significant gains from the PIKOM PC Fair which will be held in December either. Portables, especially networks, will also see a decline as several vendors have withdrawn from this highly unprofitable market," said Ng.

Furthermore, the hard disk drive shortage crisis from the Thailand floods is expected to impact netbooks as supply priority is given to larger form factors which generate higher revenue for vendors, he added.