Contrary to popular perception, hard disk shortages triggered by the floods in Thailand had

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limited impact on global PC sales in the last quarter of 2011. However, there is no reason to cheer as shipments this year may feel the pinch.

According to Gartner, worldwide PC shipments totaled 9.2-crore units in Q4 of last year, a 1.4 per cent decline on a year-on-year basis. However, the decline was lesser than what was expected and was primarily due to economic uncertainty and low consumer demand.

“Continuously low consumer PC demand resulted in weak holiday PC shipments,” said Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner. “While economic uncertainty in western Europe had an effect on consumer PC shipments, expectations of a healthier economic outlook in North America could not stimulate demand in the region. The healthy professional PC market as well as growth in emerging markets could not compensate for the weaknesses in mature markets and overall growth remained negative. However, Gartner’s preliminary estimations show that the performance in emerging economies including China, India and Thailand was also below the anticipated growth of 10.6 per cent. In Asia Pacific, PC shipments reached about 3-crore units, an 8.5 per cent increase from the fourth quarter of 2010.”

Thailand floods in October disrupted the supply of IT components globally and the effect was felt in India as well. The calamity was predicted to cause shrinkages in the supply chain till mid 2012. Many IT component makers are Thailand based. Computer hard disks suffered the most because manufacturing plants of all four large players are located in the flooded area.

Even after restoring operations, the factories in Thailand would continue to struggle because of backlog, said Alok Bharadwaj, president of the Manufacturer’s Association for Information and Technology (MAIT). They are combating problems including worker shortage as employees have migrated to safer areas, disruption of logistics and dearth of raw materials.

The No. 1 PC vendor in India, Dell expects components supply to be hampered for a couple of quarters. The company downgraded its revenue growth projection to between 1 per cent and 5 per cent during Q4, also because of the short supply of components. The repercussions are unpredictable and the company is doing everything in its capacity to mitigate the impact on consumers, said Amit Midha, president - South Asia (small and medium businesses) of Dell.

However, Dell’s shipments worldwide grew by 7.8 per cent to 1.16-crore units in Q4, primarily because of higher sales in the emerging markets. But, Lenovo has cemented itself as the No.2 player overtaking Dell. Its sales grew by about 23 per cent. Though HP suffered 16.2 per cent decrease in sales, it continues to be the global leader in the PC market.