PC Spending Facing Decline: ChangeWave
By Colleen Bohen -- TWICE, 3/25/2008 11:00:00 AM
Rockville, Md. — Consumers’ intentions to purchase laptops and desktops in the next 90 days are at the lowest point they have been in a year, according to a report on PC spending from ChangeWave. The report is based on a February survey of its affluent ChangeWave Alliance members.
The research firm, which regularly surveys its members on their consumer spending intentions, is reporting only 8 percent of respondents to a recent survey said they’ll buy laptops in the next 90 days, and only 6 percent said they plan to buy a desktop.
Among those consumers who are planning a laptop or PC purchase, ChangeWave found that “planned purchases of Apple computers remain relatively strong — even in this slower market.”
The firm said the manufacturer remains the leader for planned consumer laptop buying in the next 90 days, with 31 percent of those who plan to buy a laptop saying they will purchase an Apple. This number was only a two-point drop from the all-time record high the firm recorded in its survey the month before.
ChangeWave also reported Apple-planned-desktop purchases, down 1 point from January to 28 percent, are “also near record levels.”
In all, ChangeWave said, “Apple-planned-buying numbers are up more than 50 percent over a year earlier.”
Other manufacturers, in a particular Dell and Hewlett-Packard, are not weathering the storm quite as well.
“After experiencing an uptick in planned consumer buying in our previous survey, Dell is once again losing traction going forward,” said the report.
Twenty-eight percent of respondents who said they were planning on buying a laptop said they’d buy a Dell, down 2 points from the last survey. Planned desktop purchases dropped 4 points since the last ChangeWave survey to 32 percent.
Finally, ChangeWave said “HP consumer PC sales also look weaker going forward — led by a big drop in planned buying of desktops (18 percent; down 5 points). Laptops (19 percent) are also registering a two-point decline.”
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