Slashdot Mirror


E.U. Overtakes U.S. as Top PC Market

Digital Inspiration wrote to mention a Reuters article discussing Europe overtaking the U.S. as the largest PC Market. From the article: "Shipments in Europe, Middle East and Africa grew 17.1 percent to 72.7 million units, overtaking the United States which grew 7.5 percent to 67 million. In 2004, the United States still slightly exceeded Europe, both regions taking about 62 million units."

20 comments

  1. Who exactly overtook the US? by mooingyak · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Was it Europe, or Europe + Middle East + Africa?

    TFA and the summary both seem to confuse the issue.

    --
    William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.
    1. Re:Who exactly overtook the US? by jsiren · · Score: 1

      Especially as EU != Europe.

      Not all of Europe is in the EU: depending on the definition of Europe (which is vague at best), there are about 20 countries that do not belong to the European Union. If Russia and Turkey, both reaching into both Europe and Asia, are counted as European countries, EU citizens probably are a minority in European countries.

      Then the article talks about something called EMEA, or "Europe, Middle East, and Africa". What's that got to do with EU? EMEA could include, without much exaggeration, everything west of Oman, east of the Azores, north of the Cape of Good Hope, and south of Svalbard. Yes, EU fits in there. No, EU isn't all of it. This is like talking about "North America" while meaning only Canada. Or "Asia" while meaning only India.
      --js--

      --
      Usage: km/h for speed (kilometers per hour); kph for very slow impulses (kilopond hours).
    2. Re:Who exactly overtook the US? by Sique · · Score: 1
      If Russia and Turkey, both reaching into both Europe and Asia, are counted as European countries, EU citizens probably are a minority in European countries.


      If we look at the geographic definition of Europe (the land limited by the Ural mountains, the Caucasus mountains, the Mediterranean and the Atlantic), then most of the Turks don't live in Europe (and those, who do, live mainly in Istanbul and Edirne, maybe 5 to 7 mio, many of the inhabitants of Istanbul live in the asian part of the town though). The european part of Russia has about 100 mio inhabitant. The next big non EU land in Europe is the Ukraine (~60 Mio inhabitants), then Belarus (don't know exactly, 20 mio?), all the others mostly in the Balkan region: Croatia, Serbia-Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegowina, Albania, Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova maybe 40 Mio to 50 Mio together. All the other non members are either very small states: Monaco, Andorra, San Marino, Liechtenstein, Vatican (which has a special state because of the contracts with Italy). Switzerland and Norway have another 7 mio resp. 3 mio inhabitants. So there are maybe 250 Mio non-EU europeans, still considerably less than in the EU (and with all Turks and Russians, even if they live in Asia, we are still at less than 350 mio).

      Because most of the countries in Africa are very poor (the cross domestic product of Africa is about the same size than Belgium, Netherlands and Luxemburg together, and South Africa accounts for about 40% of it), it is not a big market for new computers. Africans often come shopping for used computers and parts to Europe, which wouldn't count towards 'newly sold units'.

      Also many people of the Balkan and East European countries don't have much money to spend on IT investitions. So I guess, the EU accounts for at least 75-80% of the numbers for EMEA.
      --
      .sig: Sique *sigh*
  2. Look out by Fiachra06 · · Score: 2, Funny

    The redcoats are coming, the redcoats are coming!

  3. Why? by the+right+sock · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I realize there's a large leftist population here, but why must there be such constant disparaging of the US, especially when there's opportunity to suck off the EU? Even to the point that an article's meaning is subtley twisted in the headline to change its scope from an entire *region* (EMEA) to a (comparatively) much smaller grouping (the EU).

    They're no better than we are; some in fact are much worse when it comes to most things that boil the blood of the common slashdotter (try reading a bit about those member countries everyone here loves so much).

    1. Re:Why? by booch · · Score: 1

      Um, even if the EU were to buy more computers than the US, how could you interpret that as them being better than the US? Sounds like an exceedingly consumerist mentality. And even if they bought more computers, they have a larger population than the US, so they didn't buy more per capita. Methinks thou doth protesteth too much.

      --
      Software sucks. Open Source sucks less.
    2. Re:Why? by amliebsch · · Score: 1
      Sounds like an exceedingly consumerist mentality.

      Perhaps s/he was responding to the "where-aren't-we-slipping-these-days dept." dig by the "editor".

      --
      If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
  4. commodity junk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Saturation point-we have hit it. I like poking around in thrift stores and pawnshops, looking for tools and old books and interesting pieces of electronics and mechanical doo dads. I'm in one thriftstore yesterday perusing the books, find an old linux for tards book with some ancient caldera disk in it. there's more books there, everything from old netware stuff to actual mainframe manuals.this is a thriftstore in a somewhat rural area to boot, pun intended. Next, I go to a pawnshop looking for tools. They had a rack of computers there, dozens of them, any price from a few bucks up to hundreds.

    In the US, there are now SO MANY computers out there that there's come a point where people just *don't need* to buy another computer. The industries-hard and soft- have to constantly create mostly artifical reasons for people to "upgrade". The emphasis now is on mobile devices, there's still some growth potential there, but desktops in particular are so commonplace and are so upgradeable that for most people and businesses, what they have is perfectly fine, hence, lower sales. No need to upgrade when you can just throw another cheap stick of RAM into what you have, and doing upgrades is no longer the exclusive province of "computer experts" that you pay big bucks to.

    1. Re:commodity junk by stinerman · · Score: 1

      The industries-hard and soft- have to constantly create mostly artifical reasons for people to "upgrade".

      No shit. That is the sole goal of marketing -- to make you think you need something that you don't really need. How many people here buy replacement goods after their current ones are no longer useable rather than buying upgrades because they have a percieved need for new goods? The entire economies of just about every country in the world would collapse if people only bought replacements instead of "upgrades".

      Think back to the purchases you've made and items you've recieved over the holidays. How many of these items were replacements for a non-functional item and how many were "gee wiz, this sure is cool"? Why do women have dozens of pairs of shoes in the closet? Artificial reasons created by some marketing department are to blame.

      The hardware guys and software guys need each other to survive. Without feature-rich software (read: bloated code) there would be no reason to upgrade from that 100MHz P1 you have in the basement. No higher performance hardware implies no more trivial transitions (Windows 95 -> 98) would occur, which would put companies that rely on the upgrade cycle out for the count.

  5. This isint a surprise by Manitcor · · Score: 1

    After being ahead for so many years in PC per unit sales, espically in the home, the market in the US is almost completly saturated. Just about everyone that wants a computer has one including many lower income families. I know alot of non-geeks that even have multiple systems.

    --
    "Don't mess with him, he taunts the happy fun ball."
  6. whatever by StuffMaster · · Score: 0
    E.U. Overtakes U.S. as Top PC Market

    The article doesn't seem to distinguish between Europe and Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. Somebody here knows not geography.

    It also doesn't say how many units shipped in Europe, so no direct comparison is possible. So either the headline was made up or the article was poorly written.

  7. Do the math. by ndansmith · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Population of EU: 459,500,000
    Population of US: 297,200,005

    As the process of modernization continues in the EU, surpassing the US in computer sales is a forgone conclusion.

    1. Re:Do the math. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      seriously, comparing a freakin continent vs 1 nation, even if it's a big nation? that's kinda pushing it. comparing a continent plus areas of other continents vs 1 nation? that's totally retarded and has not meaning other than to try and perpetuate these US vs THEM mentalities

    2. Re:Do the math. by broeman · · Score: 1

      EU is not a continent, it is a union of 25 nations. But it is true that it is not somewhat comparable, because those nations have different taxations (well, so does some US States). Many companies have, since the introduction of the internal market, seen EU as one market, instead of 12->15->25 different markets, which has created a much better and cheaper distribution of goods. On the other side, all nations in EU have different languages (and laws demanding documentation in the native language(s)), while the US market is mainly English.

      What I am trying to say is that there always is a lot of parameters, that would change the GPs simplified picture (but it is a good indication none the less).

      --

      (yes this can be compared with sex)
  8. All over the world, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    patriots are retarted people trying to know who has the bigger one, feeling uneasy every few times they touch the truth. Stop searching assholes, it's me!

  9. Hmmm a couple of things by Rac3r5 · · Score: 1

    Population of Europe>US
    these sales stats seem to be primarily of computer sales from big companies like Dell and HP.

    I dunno about the states, but here in Vancouver, Canada, most ppl I know get computers not from Dell and HP, but from local stores that sell generic computers. It seems that these stats are a bit off.

  10. personal choices by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm an extreme exception so my anecdotals don't count really. I fix and used recycled stuff a lot. For the holiday binge season I got some winter clothes (needed) as gifts and I bought myself two powertools I needed, didn't own any of those types previous. What I gave my GF she needed (high end cookware, some items she didn't have previous), because you are right, she got a closet full of clothes, didn't need any, and she told me especially do not get her any more clothes, and she has a box of good jewelry, all sorts of electronics that work, and etc... I was using a very old pentium pro until it croaked last year,and it was still running the latest linux distros, because I put enough RAM in the machine, then all I did when I actually needed a new one was get a cheap new mobo/CPU and had to get newer styled RAM for my upgrade, well,and I did get a new case, I wanted a larger one with more expansion room and places for fans if needed later one. My old box was a small pizza box and really cramped and not practical to keep upgrading. I recycled the hard drives, and am still running less than 10 gigs, because that's all I need, I don't store huge media files. My optical burner I bought used. I've never owned a "new" vehicle in my life, always bought used and keep them running long as possible. And etc. I love and use tech, but I constantly try to keep a low impact on the planet, it's the best comprimise I can think of.

    No, we really don't need to have a complete throw away every year society, but we WOULD need to rethink what people do for work all the time and how business is setup. For example, I am an alternative energy proponent, in the US and Europe there is still a huge untapped market at the joe homeowner and small business end, millions could be employed there, both manufacturing and installation/service, say, instead of every car company coming out with a new model every year, they could use those assembly line workers elsewhere, have them switch around different products. The unions could help there if both they and management and "investors" bought a clue on what's going on lately. Look at GM and ford, struggling, wicked in debgt, yet neither will bother to even try and market an entry level inexpensive pure electric commuter vehilce, yet they can drop zillions on this hydrogen 'car of the far away future" nonsense. it's stoopid. they say there was "no demand", i say they didn't even try, I sure as hell NEVER saw an electric vehicle from them for sale. I saw one EV1 one time driving around, that's it. This throw away forced upgrade crap is artificial and long run destructive, and now you can see why, it kills economies off and is only sustainable by issuing trillions in printed up money credit and faking people out to use it. This huge debt bubble fueld by easy credit andfd throw away society and wasting petroleum assets IS going to collapse, and it will be a *bad thing* when it happens. We have a chance to change things for the better, but only if tens of millions of middle class "consumers" decide enough's enough on forced upgrades and wasting resources. Some people are, witness the much larger than anticipiated demand for hybrids, leaving detroit high level management flat footed, slack jawed, dick in hand and pants around ankles. None of those buffoons or their high level "investors" could see the potential market there until a fewe smart jap companies started selling them. Now they get to play catch up as energy hog vehicles sit on the lots at throw away interest rates prices and have to be sold with incentives. That's because high level management and wall street investors are 95 per cent idiots and thieves, so far gone they can't think rationally, so far into greed that's all the decisions they are capable of making, greed based decisions.

    Pretty much I'm bailed out of that system as much as possible and is practical for me to do at this point, from those reasons and others. I simply don't want to be a part of that lifestyle, I don't have that mindset, and I try to not support it as much as po

  11. Article makes no sense... by NEOtaku17 · · Score: 1

    How can you compare the U.S. to the E.U.? One is a country! That is like comparing North America to Germany. It doesn't mean anything...

    1. Re:Article makes no sense... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Europe is seen as one unique market, like North America is seen as an other one, because of similarities in the way customers behave. To put it simply, you don't sell your stuff the same way on both continents, while it's possible within the same continent. Boundaries are only in the mind, especially from a market point of view.

      I haven't read the article but I guess it repeats word-by-word the source's misleading statistics.

    2. Re:Article makes no sense... by meggito · · Score: 1

      The EU market overtook the US market in sales. They are comparing markets not countries. The EU works off the Euro and the US off the Dollar. You might argue that it should be EU v NAFTA but that is a stretch given we dont share a currency with Mexico or Canada. Either way, the key is that they are comparing markets and not nations.