Worldwide PC shipments grew by 14.6% to 69.5 mln units in Q1 2008, which was above previous estimates of 13.2%, according to IDC. US market slipped to a meager 3.5% YOY growth rate as the general economic malaise currently affecting the U.S. economy has begun to impact the local PC market as well.

According to IDC EMEA, Q1 2008 PC shipments recorded robust 19% growth compared with Q1 2007. Notebooks continued to drive growth across the region with shipments recording an increase of over 43% year on year, while desktops suffered from the market contraction in Western Europe and declined by 1.7%, boosting the share of notebooks to over 55% of total EMEA shipments.

In Q4 2007 HP’s global PC shipments rose to 14.6 mln units, up 25.5% from 11.6 mln during Q4 2006, according to iSuppli. With sequence of six quarters of worldwide PC shipment leadership, Hewlett-Packard claimed the #1 ranking for worldwide PC shipments for the entire year of 2007. Dell’s shipments rose to 11.3 mln units in Q4 2007, up 17.4% over Q4 2006. This compares to 1.5% growth during Q3. Dell’s shipments were up 14.1% compared to Q3– in is the largest percentage increase among the Top-6 brands. Apple is brand at No. 6, a position the company has held since Q3 2007. The company’s total fourth-quarter PC shipments grew 39.3% YoY, with equally strong growth for its desktop and notebook businesses. Total worldwide PC shipments in Q4 2007 amounted to 76.2 mln units, up 11.7% sequentially and up 14.2% from 66.7 mln during Q4 2006.

Gartner believes that virtualization reduced the x86 server market by 4% in 2006. As hypervisor prices drop sharply and management costs decrease because of increased competition, virtualization will have a significantly larger impact. Gartner predicts that more than 4 mln virtual machines will be installed on x86 servers by 2009. The use of PC virtualization is also set to increase rapidly. The number of virtualized PCs is expected to grow from less than 5 mln in 2007 to 660 mln by 2011.

Worldwide PC shipments are projected to grow by 12.8% in 2008 to reach 302 mln units, according to IDC. Growth will continue at above 11% in 2009 followed by high single-digit growth through 2012, boosting annual shipments to over 426 mln in 2012. The total value of PC shipments is projected to grow by 7.4% in 2008 to nearly $280 bln. Shipment value will continue to grow by roughly 4% annually from 2009 through 2012, reaching nearly $330 bln by 2012. Portable adoption remains the primary driver in all regions, nearly matching record quarterly growth in Q3 2007, and record annual growth in 2005. Increases of more than 50% in Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) and Rest of World helped boost these regions to more than 36% of Portable volume, while the United States and Western Europe saw growth above 20% and continue to account for more than 50% of portable volume.

Pricing strength will contribute to a strong Q1 2008 for small/medium displays, with global revenue reaching $6.4 bln in Q1 2008, up 17.3% from $5.4 bln in the Q1 2007, according to iSuppli. Revenue in Q1 2008 will decline by 6.5% compared to Q4 2007, but such a seasonal slowdown is typical in the small/medium market. For all of 2008, small/medium display revenue is expected to rise to $27.6 bln, up 14.7% from $24 bln in 2007. This represents a significant acceleration compared to 8.8% growth in 2006.

Although prices for digital photo frame displays will decline by 3.3% in Q1 2008, prices will increase slightly in other areas, including Portable Media Players (PMPs), mobile handsets, automotive applications, camcorders, cameras and industrial/financial applications, iSuppli predicts. This will cause the overall ASP of small/medium displays to rise to $6.80 in Q1 2008, up 22 percent from $5.60 in Q4 2007, according to iSuppli.

8% of the US consumers surveyed by ChangeWave

The worldwide storage software market experienced its 17th consecutive quarter of YTY growth in the Q4 2007 with revenues of $2.9 bln, an 11.2% increase over Q4 2006, according to IDC. For the full year 2007, storage software revenues totaled $10.9 bln, growing 10.4% year over year. The archiving market grew 18.6% year over year, driven by e-discovery, regulatory compliance, and overall storage optimization needs. Data protection and recovery had strong year-over-year growth of 11.5%. This growth was perpetuated by four out of the top six vendors experiencing double-digit growth over Q4 2006.

EMC led the overall market with 26.0% revenue share in Q4 2007. Symantec took the second position with 17.9% revenue share, while IBM finished in the third position with 12.5% revenue share. NetApp finished in the fourth position with 8.3% revenue share while HP rounded out the top 5 with 5.2% revenue share.

The global Average Selling Price (ASP) of small/medium displays used for digital photo frames rose to $30 in Q4 2007, up 20% from $25 in Q3 2007. The ASP for small/medium displays for tiny LCD televisions rose to $8.40 in the fourth quarter, up 2.4% from $8.20 in Q3 2007, according to iSuppli.

Overall demand for small/medium displays, i.e. screens with diagonal dimensions of less than 10 inches, exceeded supply by a scant 0.8% in Q4 2007 down from 6.2% in Q3 2007, according to iSuppli.

Gartner sees growth of 10.9% to 293 mln shipments, versus its December 2007 forecast of an 11.6% increase. Replacements account for 60% of global shipments, and nearly 80% in the US.

Shipments of graphics devices reached 31.64 mln units in Q4 2007. That represents 50.3% growth YTY, Jon Peddie Research reports.

In 2007, the PC supply chain shipped 257 mln systems worldwide and the mobile phone supply chain manufactured 1.1 bln finished phones that same year, according to IDC. Combined, these two supply chains finished shipments were valued at $318 bln in 2007, equal to more than a third of the global customer spending on information and communications technology hardware. In 2008, IDC expects the PC and the mobile phone supply chains to increase shipments by 10% worldwide.

DisplaySearch expects 228.8 mln notebooks will be sold worldwide in 2007, nearly 10x as many as in 2001. Forrester Research survey shows 57% of all U.S. leisure passengers are interested in going online during a flight.

GfK Asia reports that volumes in Asian retail PC market expanded dramatically in 2007, with an average overall regional increase of 21%, but with plummeting per unit values, the overall dollar value of sales actually declined by 5% when compared to 2006. During 2007, the greatest increase in the PC market was in personal portable computers, with an average regional volume increase of 45% year on year. China was the leader in sales growth with a marked 53% in volumes, to command 57% of all personal portable computer units sold in the region in 2007. However, Unit values for personal portable computers fell dramatically — in China, the average unit price fell from $1146.57 in 2006 to just $994.65 in 2007. The retail desktop PC market across the region increased at a much slower rate, gaining an overall average of 8% volume and a net fall in value of 6% across the region during 2007 when compared to 2006.

The fastest-growing segment of In the Romanian PC market was for notebooks, which increased 160% YTY and 133% QTQ in volume between September and December 2007, accounting for almost 40% of the market. The desktop form factor continued to dominate the market in 4Q 2007 with 60.7% share, after 39.1% growth in shipments and 66.2% growth in value YTY, according to IDC.

Casual gaming is a $2.25 bln industry, and is growing 20% each year, according to the Casual Games Association. Each month, more than 200 mln people play casual games online. And while serious gamers tend to be young men, casual gamers are more evenly split: 48.3% are male, and 51.3% are female.