Although the desktop and notebook personal computer shipments for Latin America are in, the final verdict for the region is still out.
According to a new IDC report, personal computer vendors in Latin America shipped a total of 1.83 million desktops and notebooks during the first three months of 2001 for a value of US $2.0 billion. This represents an increase of 19 percent for units shipped and an increase in value of 13 percent when compared to the first quarter of 2000. However, despite a 33 percent increase in Brazil, the performance throughout the region wasn’t uniform.
“Although Brazil and Chile had extremely strong results in quarter one of 2001, Mexico was not as strong as we expected, and Argentina’s results were extremely poor,” said Jay Gumbiner, PC Market Analyst for IDC Latin America. “The slowdown in the US economy started to reverberate into the region with Mexico’s PC market only growing eight percent from a year ago.”
Additionally, the resilient IT market in Argentina couldn’t shake off the ongoing internal economic problems that the country had to endure in the first quarter as desktop and notebook shipments grew a paltry three percent.
“Our near term projections for Argentina will definitely need to be re-evaluated given these new circumstances,” Gumbiner added.
Although the report doesn’t mention Apple’s numbers, Compaq remains the number one computer vendor in the region, with Hewlett Packard, IBM, and Dell taking the next three spots. As of last September, Apple ranked number nine.
In past years, there has been an annual Apple World, the second edition of the largest fair in Latin America focused exclusively on the Mac platform. We don’t have any details on whether such a show is planned for this year. If you have any info about an Apple World 2001, drop us a line.