Dell dominates Irish PC market


31 Oct 2002

Dell has responded to a declining market by increasing its market share in all areas.

It currently has 12.4pc of the commercial desktop market, for example, with a year-on-year growth of 8pc. If its global figures are impressive, the story in the Irish market is even better.

According to PJ Dwyer, marketing manager for corporate and public sector, the company has 27pc of the consumer desktop market, 37pc of the business desktop market and 70pc of the workstation market.

Dell’s market share in Ireland is far ahead of that in any other European country. Dwyer cites a number of reasons for this, not least the fact that it was an early entrant into the Irish market and has a large presence here with facilities in Limerick and Bray. As a result it has a high degree of visibility in the country.

Dwyer also states that the company benefited hugely from the boom in Ireland, gaining a significant chunk of IT spending. Earlier this month in Munich, the company announced its latest results, previewed its latest products and turned its attention to next year.

Martin Hingley of International Data Corporation (IDC) predicts a 7pc growth in IT spending in 2003. This was founded upon an expected growth of 4.5pc in GDP in western Europe. Hingley outlines what IDC found to be the prime user-requirements in the business PC market. These included smaller footprints for retail applications and space saving, higher performance for power users, better integration between devices such as PCs, handhelds and mobile phones and reusable components, especially for laptop PCs.

Hingley also states that the PC market is still the largest component of IT spending, although the business was moving to smaller companies and home users.