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Big names dominated UK channel in May
Battle of the brands
Top-brand vendors increased their share of shipments made through the UK's reseller channel during May at the expense of second-tier players, market watcher Context has revealed.
Together HP, Toshiba, Acer, Fujitsu-Siemens, IBM, Sony, Dell and Apple shipped 72.6 per cent of the desktops, notebooks and servers sold through the channel in May, up from 64.4 per cent in May 2003.
All eight vendors saw market share gains, with Acer experiencing the highest growth, taking its share from 4.5 per cent to 7.1 per cent. Acer is now the number two channel player in Europe's top seven economies with 12.5 per cent of sales. That puts it in third place Toshiba (8.6 per cent, up from 7.9 per cent) and well behind HP.
HP's share grew year on year by less than a percentage point, from 34 per cent to 34.7 per cent, but that sill leaves it will four times the market penetration of its closest rival.
Context puts the shift toward big-name vendors down to increasing price competition, with the larger players better able to cut prices not only to maintain but to grow sales.
The growing demand for notebooks also played a part - which also explains Acer's success. Context says notebook PCs accounted for 40.3 per cent of all PCs sold by resellers in Germany, France, the UK, Italy, Spain, Netherlands and Sweden, up from 37.1 per cent in the same month a year ago.
The researcher's data cover shipments through mainstream dealers, corporate resellers and consumer retailers, so total market share figures will be very different once direct shipments have been taken into account. ®
| May 2004 UK Reseller Channel Shipments By Vendor | ||
| Vendor | May 2003 Share | May 2004 Share |
| HP | 34% | 34.7% |
| Toshiba | 7.9% | 8.6% |
| Acer | 4.5% | 7.1% |
| Fujitsu-Siemens | 5% | 5.9% |
| IBM | 3.8% | 5.2% |
| Sony | 3.1% | 4.3% |
| Dell | 3.3% | 3.5% |
| Apple | 2.8% | 3.3% |
| Others | 35.6% | 27.4% |
| May 2004 UK Reseller Channel Shipments by Type | ||
| Type | May 2003 Share | May 2004 Share |
| Desktop | 64.8% | 58.9% |
| Mobile (inc. Tablets) | 32.6% | 37.5% |
| x86 Server | 2.6% | 3.6% |
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