Sydney, Australia, 16 Dec - On the back of its retail store expansion and Macbook Air Sandy Bridge refresh, Apple overtook Acer and Dell for the first time in any one quarter to grab the 2nd position in the Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) PC market by unit shipments.

The overall PC market, however, dropped by 8% quarter-on-quarter in Q3 2011 to 1.61 million unit shipments as seasonally expected. Aggressive promotions initiated by national retailers such as Harvey Norman's 2 for 1 sale were key drivers in encouraging demand and sell-through which pushed the market 3% higher than the same period last year.

Concerns over the implementation of the carbon tax and the deteriorating European economy, coupled with unexpected shortages in the supply of AMD processors in the self-assembled PC market brought the market in below forecasts. In New Zealand, although the Rugby World Cup was a boon to the overall economy and consumer sentiments, IT sales were affected as spending was diverted to non-IT products.

"While most vendors' performance slowed in Q3, HP, in particular, took the strongest hit. There were delays in government project roll outs while HP's channels cut back in stock intake as a precautionary measure in view of market softness," said IDC market analyst, Amy Cheah. "The unfortunate 'PSG spin off' debacle also momentarily affected confidence in HP's strategic outlook which opened a window of opportunity for competitors such as Apple to gain share."

IDC expects the ANZ PC market to grow 10% quarter-on-quarter to 1.77 million unit shipments considering the year end seasonal sales and education rollout period. Despite an industry-wide HDD supply shortage resulting from severe flooding in Thailand, IDC believes most Q4 inventory orders were placed before the shortage took effect, thus Christmas sales and large education deals in Queensland and New South Wales are expected to see only minor disruption. IDC expects the situation to worsen in Q1 2012 when existing inventories are depleted before recovering in Q2 2012.

"Though this issue impacts the supply-side more than demand, the effect of tightening HDD supply will cascade down to end users as vendors limit promotions and shift focus to premium products to balance out profit margins. Consumers who are generally more price sensitive will feel more of the pinch when the higher cost of HDD is passed on to end users," said Amy Cheah. "Industry leaders with the economies of scale advantage and flexibility to manage allocation may see competitive opportunities arise out of this situation."