Malaysian Government’s Netbook Project Leads Surge in PC Market in 1Q12, says IDC

Kuala Lumpur, June 11, 2012 -- According to IDC’s Asia/Pacific PC Tracker, the 1Q12 Malaysia PC market registered an impressive sequential increase of 44% to 1,103,000 units. The primary contributor to this growth was the fulfillment of over 300,000 mininotebooks under Phase 3A of the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) 1Million Netbooks program. Without this project, the Malaysia PC market would have stayed flat against the previous quarter as overall retail and commercial spending remained sluggish.

The commercial segment declined 22% quarter on quarter (QoQ) in 1Q12. This decline was expected as a large mininotebook delivery to Terengganu schoolchildren in 4Q11 was not repeated this quarter. According to Ng Juan Jin, Market Analyst for Client Devices Research at IDC ASEAN, "The non-repeat of the Terengganu school project was not the only reason behind lackluster commercial spending. The government sector was particularly slow as well, declining 33% QoQ as federal spending was focused on community and social welfare projects rather than on IT infrastructure investment."

Large/Very Large enterprises also performed relatively poorly in 1Q12. Juan Jin explains, "This segment fell by 22% as they held off on spending this quarter after engaging in PC refreshment cycles in 4Q11.”

Excluding the MCMC mininotebook project, the consumer segment fared relatively better compared to the commercial sector, growing marginally by 8% QoQ. The HDD crisis which restricted the supply of PCs in 4Q11 was resolved earlier than expected and this allowed vendors to resume regular channel loading activity. AMD also contributed to the growth of the consumer notebook market. It managed to make headway in the low-end home segment by pushing its affordable models to price-conscious consumers.

Juan Jin continues, "We expect delivery of the final phase of the government's MCMC mininotebook project in the upcoming quarter. However, as the size of this rollout is smaller than in 1Q12 at just over 200,000 units, a drop in the total 2Q12 PC market is inevitable. Enterprise spending from Large/Very Large enterprises and SME segments is expected to prop up the commercial market as there has been no word as of yet regarding the rollout of large public sector projects."

For more information about the research or to purchase this data, please contact Harsha Sundararaman at +65-6829-7716 or hsundararaman@idc.com.