Worldwide Multimedia Desktop PC Market Doubled in 1995
Dataquest Reports Pacific Rim Enjoyed Quadruple Growth
San Jose, Calif., June 10, 1996—The worldwide multimedia desktop PC market had another explosive year according to Dataquest, growing from 10.3 million units in 1994 to more than 20.8 million units in 1995, fueled largely by growth in the Pacific Rim and Europe. While the U.S. market grew by 35 percent, Europe grew by 144 percent and Japan and Asia/Pacific grew by an astounding 391 percent.
"The Asian markets really embraced the multimedia PC in 1995," said Bruce Ryon, director and principal analyst of Dataquest's Multimedia Worldwide program. "All indications are that multimedia will be integrated at a much higher rate in the Asian markets than in the U.S. Multimedia PCs have held at a 42 percent average of all PCs sold in the U.S. for the last six quarters, but multimedia desktop PCs in the Asian markets are already at greater than 50 percent of all PCs sold."
Apple Computer was the No. 1 multimedia PC vendor in the world in 1995 for the third consecutive year. Apple outsold its nearest competitor, Packard Bell, by almost one million units worldwide (see Table 1). However, because of the huge growth by non-U.S.-based vendors into their own regions, all U.S.-based multimedia PC vendors lost worldwide market share, with Packard Bell and Apple showing the largest decline.
Table 1
Top 5 Multimedia Desktop PC Vendors by Worldwide Shipment Estimates
(Thousands of Units)
Company 1994 1994 Market 1995 1995 Market Growth (%)
Shipments Share (%) Shipments Share (%) 1994-1995
Apple 2,349 22.9 3,931 18.8 67.4
Packard Bell 1,969 19.2 3,004 14.4 52.6
Compaq 1,226 11.9 1,931 9.3 57.5
IBM 820 8.0 1,549 7.4 88.9
NEC 445 4.3 1,465 7.0 229.3
Others 3,305 32.3 8,977 43.0 171.5
Total 10,267 100.0 20,858 100.0 103.2
Note: Columns may not add to totals shown because of rounding.
Source: Dataquest (June 1996)
The worldwide growth rates by the non-U.S.-based vendors were especially significant as the top 5 non-U.S.-based vendors had anywhere from just slightly less than triple growth, with Acer at 192 percent, to 8 times growth by Fujitsu (see Table 2). In light of the recent announcement of NEC's non-Japan PC business moving over to Packard Bell, this would have affected only 12 percent of NEC's multimedia PC shipments in 1995, or 173,000 units.
Table 2
Top 5 Non-U.S.-based Multimedia Desktop PC Vendors by Worldwide Shipments
(Thousands of Units)
Company 1994 1994 Market 1995 1995 Market Growth (%)
Shipments Share (%) Shipments Share (%) 1994-1995
NEC 445 4.3 1,465 7.0 229.5
Acer 278 2.7 812 3.9 192.0
Fujitsu 65 0.6 576 2.8 785.3
Highscreen 57 0.6 248 1.2 334.9
Escom 78 0.7 239 1.1 242.0
Source: Dataquest (June 1996)
Dataquest's Multimedia Worldwide program examines the technology and market trends that shape the broad range of multimedia products, both television- and computer-based. Hardware coverage includes such areas as multimedia PCs, workstations, kits, CD-ROM drives, sound boards, compression boards, LANs, video servers, video games, digital set-top boxes, public and private networks, and satellites. Multimedia software coverage includes CD-ROM titles, video game cartridges, and interactive television subscriptions. Finally, specialized technology coverage includes areas such as videoconferencing, video production, virtual reality, kiosks, and voice recognition.
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Dataquest, founded in 1971, is a global market research and consulting company serving the high-technology and financial communities. The company provides worldwide market coverage on the semiconductor, computer systems and peripherals, communications, document management, software, and services sectors of the information technology industry. Dataquest is a GartnerGroup [ http://www.gartner.com/ ] Company.