No One Expected PC Sales Up 15%

IDC and Gartner have red faces from yesterday's announcement that PC sales are up 15%-17% last quarter -- depending on how you count white boxes. Neither of these well-compensated firms came even close with their forecasts earlier this year. However, leaving the missed forecast aside, this is good news for the industry. With almost 49 million PCs shipped last quarter -- seasonally a weak one -- the industry is on a path to about 200 million PCs this year.

It was only three years ago that the industry hit 100 million units. It is the stealth, double-digit growth rate that should attract the reader's attention. The whole story is complex, but it is hard to see what going on from a U.S. vantage point. Much of the global growth is coming in developing countries. In mature markets, laptops have overtaken desktops for both consumer and business computing.

Again, I am flabbergasted at the size of the market growth. A 200 million PC market is a big, silent elephant in the corner of the global tech economy. That elephant carries bilions in software, peripheral, semiconductor, transportation and service revenues.

In the U.S., the top five manufacturers in order by market share are Dell, HP, Gateway, Apple (yes, Apple), and IBM/Lenovo.