PC Unit Shipments Are Up and That's Bad News

Last this afternoon, IDC (IDC) announced that the fourth quarter of 2009, led by holiday purchases, saw a 15.2 percent increase in PC units shipped globally, the first time there's been double digital growth since the third quarter of 2008, and year-over-year unit sale growth of 2.3 percent. But don't break out the champagne and confetti, because the overall picture is actually pretty grim.

Here's the IDC table showing the fourth quarter breakout by company:

And here's the table for 2009 unit shipments by company:

Look at both the tables carefully. Notice something missing? Dollars. There is no mention of how much growth there was in dollar volume, and my guess is because there wasn't any. Here are two telling paragraphs from the IDC release:

"The U.S. market exploded in the fourth quarter, driven by a series of factors contributing to the unexpected 24% year-on-year growth. First is the rubber-band effect and recovery from the year-ago quarter, which suffered from buyer contraction when the economic crisis was confirmed. The vendors responded with new low price points to stimulate demand and face competition. In this context, low-cost notebooks and mininotebooks were the biggest contributors to the successful fourth quarter. Once again, the consumer market overcame the weak commercial sector to save the quarter," says David Daoud, research manager, U.S. Quarterly PC Tracker."The market has weathered a storm which looks to be behind us," says Jay Chou, research analyst, Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker. "But salvaging decreasing margins will soon become even more pertinent as one considers the long-term effects of holding market share at the cost of profitability. Without an effective strategy to convey a clear usage model and feature set tied to each segment, the market will inevitably continue down the slippery slope of 'good-enough' computing sold to the lowest bidder".