IDC: EU printer market returns to growth

Posted on August 8, 2013 by - News

inkjetIDC figures have noted that the printing market in Western Europe has returned to growth with commercial markets leading the charge, and laser shipments grew yearly by 11.6 percent.

Inkjet shipments remained flat, increasing a smidgen at 0.1 percent for Q2 2013 compared to the same time last year. Multi function printers impacted on the inkjet market.

Overall, the market increased 4.3 percent to 4.69 million units in Q2 2013 compared to the same time last year, but strong competition meant a 3.3 percent drop in dollar value for the market. Most market growth can be attributed to laser products, and IDC believes this demonstrates a returning confidence on spending in business markets. Laser printers and MFPs experienced double digit growth.

Colour products enjoyed the most growth at 17.3 percent, with share in A4 and A3 segments for both printers and MFPs increasing.

Monochrome printing did grow 10.1 percent but the A3 market here continued a decline.

Business inkjets increased yearly by 22.5 percent but inkjets for plebs contracted. High speed inkjets grew a formidable 57.1 percent.

The British market declined overall year on year by three percent, with continued declines in consumer inkjets. But there were signs of hope in the laser markets, increasing 16.9 percent year on year, and apart from A3 products there was growth across all segments.

Businesses were buying inkjet printers in the UK too, growing at 25.6 percent – compared to consumer inkjet spending which declined 11.3 percent.

Ultrabooks help SSD sales

Posted on August 8, 2013 by - News

ssdSolid-state drives are the new black and they are slowly starting to trickle down into mainstream PCs, thanks to cheaper Ultrabooks and increasing demand for non-enterprise drives. According to research firm IHS, SSD shipments for ultrathin notebooks and Ultrabooks totalled 5.9 million units this year, up from just 1.9 million a year ago.

SSDs are also making their first forays into the tablet sector, with shipments of 1.6 million units, up from 542,000 units last year. If demand for Windows 8 tablets and hybrids ever picks up, SSD deployment will follow suit.

Overall SSD shipments in the first quarter of 2013 amounted to 11.5 million units, up from 6 million in Q1 2012. However, it should be pointed out that IHS did not include shipments of NAND flash components for cache SSD drives and hybrid drives. In contrast, shipments of mechanical drives fell seven percent in Q1 to 135.7 million units, down from 145.5 million a year ago.

“The SSD market enjoyed big results in the first quarter as both the consumer and enterprise markets ramped up their use of machines that made use of the drives,” said Fang Zhang, analyst for storage systems at IHS. “Most notably, SSD attach rates climbed in ultrathin/Ultrabook PCs where SSDs are the de facto storage medium, and also in PC tablets where productivity options differentiate them from media tablets.”

Things could have been even better had Ultrabook sales taken off, but demand remains relatively soft. Hybrids, or 2-in-1s are the new flavour of the day, but analysts aren’t sure they will be a big success, either.

The big winners in Q1 were Samsung, Intel, SanDisk, HGST and newcomers Seagate and LSI.

There’s gold in the used smartphone market

Posted on August 8, 2013 by - News

threeiphonesWith millions of smartphones sold each week, the market is quickly becoming saturated and upgrade cycles are likely to slow down, but while this might be bad news for phone makers and carriers, some outfits will cash in on second-hand phones.

According to research firm Sanford C. Bernstein, the global trade in used smartphones might be the next big thing.

“Our analysis suggests that the used smartphone market is poised to explode – we estimate that the market will grow from 53 million to 257 million units over the next 5 years,” said Toni Sacconaghi of Sanford C. Bernstein. “By 2018, we estimate that used phones will cannibalise eight percent of total new smartphone sales, up from three percent in 2012.”

The percentages don’t sound very impressive, but the unit volume does. At the moment, most used phones are collected in the US and sold in emerging markets. Apple’s iPhones are particularly hot and there is plenty of demand in emerging markets, as many customers simply can’t afford new iPhones – and even older models are status symbols in less affluent markets.

Sacconaghi found that iPhones see a lot less depreciation than Samsung’s Galaxy S series phones. Even broken iPhones are selling, which isn’t the case with other brands. Carriers are also joining the fun and they are offering trade-in programmes that actually pay more for phones locked to a competitor’s network. In some cases, US carriers are willing to pay twice as much to get their hands on a phone locked to a competitor’s network.

Piper Jaffray analyst and Apple guru Gene Munster also concluded that iPhones have better resale values that Galaxy phones.

Apple’s build quality is second to none, so most iPhones stand up to punishment better than plasticky Samsungs. Brand snobbery is another factor, but Samsung has some trump cards as well. Galaxies have an easily replacable back cover and a user-replacable battery, which is not the case with iPhones.

Apple is reportedly mulling a trade-in programme of its own, through its stores, reports Forbes.

PC gaming hardware bucks negative trend

Posted on August 8, 2013 by - News, Opinions

gamer-sexAlthough the PC market is going through a rough patch, sales of gaming hardware seem to be weathering the storm quite well. Hardcore gamers are enthusiasts, they can’t trade in their beloved desktops for laptops, let alone tablets. Even console gaming is frowned upon in many circles.

As a result, gamers are continuing to spend and upgrade their high-end PCs. Jon Peddie Research found that sales of gaming hardware will continue to grow and at a CAGR of 3 percent over the next three years. Sales slumped this year and they are expected to hit $18.3 billion. By 2016, however, JPR reckons they will reach $20.7 billion.

Jon Peddie, President of JPR said “Not only is gaming becoming an even more important purchasing influence of PC sales due to the offloading of more basic functionality to smart devices, but we are forecasting growth in the most expensive discrete graphics products. We are also impressed with the embedded graphics offerings this generation and going forward.”

Analyst Ted Pollak also pointed out that many new games are placing increasing demands on the CPU, hence swapping out the graphics card doesn’t do the trick anymore – gamers have to upgrade their CPUs as well. In many cases this means they have to replace the motherboard as well, while investments in additional components such as faster memory and power supply units are not uncommon in such scenarios.

JPR believes that traditional PCs have an advantage in casual gaming as x86 tablets expand the market, and new powerful CPUs with built-in graphics have opened the door to the living room. Nothing can surpass PCs at this point in time because they can run ultra high resolution graphics better than any other platform. Sadly though, 4K or UHD monitors and TVs are still years away from going mainstream, as they could generate even more demand for high-end GPUs and CPUs.

However, although JPR’s forecast is good news for many vendors, we have some long-term concerns.

PC gaming doesn’t come cheap and with record youth unemployment and very little in the way of disposable income, high-end gaming PCs are simply out of reach for many potential buyers. AAA titles don’t come cheap, either. Furthermore most gamers grew up with PCs and they developed a love for tinkering and hardware at a very young age. Now that most kids’ first contact with computers comes in the form of tablets, smartphones and consoles, it will be increasingly difficult to recruit new PC gamers.

In addition, the pace of hardware development in the PC industry is slowing. While we see twofold performance improvements with each generation of ARM-based SoCs, big GPUs and CPUs used in high-end PCs simply can’t deliver such boosts and the performance difference between subsequent generations is narrowing. This trend is here to stay, due to technical limitations, but development of ARM chips is also likely to slow down, as they hit the thermal barrier. Cloud gaming and streaming are also potential threats. A few years down the road gamers might be leasing processing power and streaming games to any screen they want, which would be very bad news for some vendors. Luckily, that won’t happen anytime soon.

European PC market falls 20 percent in Q2

Posted on August 8, 2013 by - News

pc-sales-slumpThe European PC market may be about to bottom out, but before it does several vendors will take massive hits,  research from Gartner reveals. PC shipments in Western Europe totalled just 10.9 million units last quarter, down 19.8 percent year-on-year.

Gartner concluded that the death of netbook PCs, inventory woes caused by the transition to Haswell and Windows 8.1 all played a role in the decline. Acer and Asus were particularly hard hit. Acer’s sales were down 44.7 percent, while Asus took a 41.7 percent plunge. Acer sold just 1.3 million boxes in Q2, down from 2.36 million in the same quarter last year. It faired a bit better in Britain, with a 21.4 percent drop. Asus managed 850,000 units, down from 1.45 million last year.

HP still leads the way with 2.28 million units and a 20.8 percent market share. Unlike Acer and Asus, it managed to maintain its market share, but overall shipments were down 17.4 percent compared to a year ago. Lenovo was the only big vendor to end the quarter on a positive note. It shipped 1.26 million units, up from 1.185 million last year. That was enough to boost its market share from 7.8 to 11.5 percent.

Dell also did relatively well. Although its shipments were down 1.1 percent to 1.17 million units, Dell upped its market share from 8.7 percent to 10.7 percent.

gartner-UKPC-2Q13

Although all segments of the PC market declined, notebook sales saw a 23.9 percent drop, while desktop sales declined 12.2 percent. The consumer market saw a 25.8 percent dip, while sales of professional rigs were down 13.5 percent.

Gartner concluded that the UK mobile PC market lost 25 percent of its volume since 2010. PC shipments in Blighty totalled 2.2 percent units in Q1, down 13 percent from Q1 2012.

“The second quarter marked the 11th consecutive quarter of decline in the U.K.,” said Ranjit Atwal, research director at Gartner. “During this time the notebook market has shrunk nearly 25 percent in unit volume. The U.K. notebook market totaled over 2 million units in the second quarter of 2010 and has now reached just under 1.5 million units.”

Atwal said PC vendors are now at a “make or break point” in the industry, as the product move to new hardware and Windows 8.1 could turn things around. He also pointed out that the professional market did a lot better than the consumer market.

However, it looks like things will get worse before they get better.

Lenovo gains on Apple – report

Posted on August 7, 2013 by - News

pc-sales-slumpMore good news for Lenovo. According to a company called Canalys, Apple has lost ground to Lenovo on the back of lacklustre iPad sales in Q2.

It is worth noting that Canalys includes tablets in its quarterly PC market reports. Therefore it found that Android now has a 17 percent share in the PC market.

Although tablet sales appear to be slowing down while some people wait for new fruity toys “Designed in California”, Canalys reckons tablets will outsell notebooks by the fourth quarter of 2013. This is in line with previous reports from other research firms.

PC shipments in EMEA fell  year-on-year in Q2, the first decline after two successive quarters of double-digit growth. Western Europe was down 10 percent, while Central and Eastern Europe took a three  percent plunge.

canalys-PCreport-Q213

Demand for smartphones and tablets is increasing around the world. However, faced by a changing industry, channel partners are exercising caution when planning and placing orders. Apple kept the lead in Q2, with 18.6 million units shipped and a 17.1 percent market share. However, it lost two percent from Q2 2012. Lenovo upped its share to 12.9 percent and shipped 14.1 million units. HP lost share and volume and it’s in third spot with 12.7 million units and an 11.6 percent share.

It should be noted that desktop and notebook shipments accounted for about 20 percent of Apple’s total shipments. Samsung also made its way into the top five, with 10.8 million units and a 9.9 percent share, but, like Apple, most of its shipments were tablets, not proper PCs.

Canalys found that most vendors are seeing increased tablet volumes, but that won’t help traditional PC outfits. Volumes are one thing, but most tablets coming out of Lenovo, HP and the rest of the PC gang are on the cheap side, with relatively low ASPs.

Acer’s Win8 tab price slashed

Posted on August 7, 2013 by - News, Products

acer-w3Acer has decided to cut the price of its first Windows 8 tablet by over 20 percent, despite the fact that it was launched less than two months ago. Things can’t be going well when a brand new product has its price slashed in a matter of weeks, but this is hardly Acer’s fault.

The Acer Iconia W3 tablet will now sell for $299 for the entry level 32GB model in the US, which is a nice $80 discount over the original list price. Acer said the cut would be applied in other markets as well, reports Focus Taiwan. Granted the W3 is a rather odd device. Most consumers associate Windows 8 with big, elaborate and  overpriced tablets or hybrids, but the W3 is a cheap 8-incher.

In any case this does not bode well for Redmond. Over the weekend it cut the Surface Pro price by $100 and a couple of weeks ago it also gave the doomed Surface RT a 30-percent haircut. It is clearly not going well and Acer’s decision is just the icing on the cake.

What’s more, Microsoft’s own cuts came a few months after the launch, while Acer decided to slash the price of a brand new device which is still rolling out in some markets. Last month it was rumoured that Acer would replace the W3 in September, after just three months on the market.  If this is indicative of a wider trend, and that appears to be the case, we have to wonder why vendors would even bother with Windows 8 tablets?

Analysts estimate that a total of 1.8 million Windows tablets were shipped in the second quarter, giving both Microsoft’s tablet operating systems a combined market share of 4 percent.

UK B2C e-commerce to hit £62.49 billion

Posted on August 7, 2013 by - News

visa-epayBritish people are falling in love with e-commerce and a new eMarketer report claims their enthusiasm for buying things they don’t need and can’t afford with money they don’t have will drive UK business-to-consumer e-commerce sales up to £62.49 billion this year.

It gets better – by 2017 the figure may hit £89.73 billion, or 16 percent of total UK retail sales. However, the figures include digital travel sales. The volume of retail e-commerce sales this year may be £44.06 billion and they will represent 70.5 percent of B2C e-commerce sales in 2013. The share is expected to rise to 72.5 percent by 2017.

Although the average UK buyer often ranks as the top spending e-commerce consumer worldwide, non-UK people are starting to play a notable role in B2C sales. IMRG speculates that online retail sales made by non-UK people will total £10 billion this year, up from £7.4 billion in 2012.

Mobile e-commerce is also showing signs of growth. Sales from mobile phones and tablets are expected to increase 71.8 percent year-on-year to £6.6 billion, that’s 15 percent of total UK e-commerce sales. In 2017 they will  hit £17.2 billion. Possibly.

Most online shoppers are after clothes, sports goods, household goods, travel arrangements, accommodation, tickets, music, films, newspapers and books. British fashion outlets are doing particularly well, unlike their counterparts in the rest of the world. Many people are still reluctant when it comes to buying clothes online, but fashion shops in the UK are offering free shipping and generous return policies.

Juniper increases partner services offerings

Posted on August 6, 2013 by - News

JuniperEnormous company Juniper Networks has announced the Juniper Partner Advantage Services scheme, in addition to the 2012 launch of the Partner Advantage Program. The idea is to give partners a way to differentiate their brands and offer incentives for market performance.

Partner Advantage Services will bring in two new specialisations. These are Partner Support Services, which offers partners different tools and services to improve their businesses, and Partner Professional Services, which places an emphasis on helping partners expand their services segments.

Those specialising in Partner Support Services will get access to new course offerings like the troubleshooting cert, Juniper Networks Certified Support Professional, for enhancing practices in the routing, switching, and security markets. They will also get access to advanced support engineers from Juniper’s technical assistance centre.

Partner Professional Services seeks to boost Juniper and its partners’ capabilities in the professional services sector, offering help for generating more revenue and improving customer services.

Emilio Umeoka, senior veep for worldwide partners at Juniper, said the offering “amplifies” the company’s investment in partners and services “by providing unique tools and opportunities that will help drive growth, increase profitability and reward partners that deliver a truly remarkable customer experience”.

Channel cautious on Ivy Bridge notebooks

Posted on August 6, 2013 by - News

Intel-logoSome channel retailers are expected to switch away from Ivy Bridge based notebooks and back to the classic desktop, on the back of weak industry demand.

Plenty of channel retailers, according to Digitimes, are struggling getting rid of their Ivy Bridge notebook interviews and are taking a cautious approach to placing new orders for the classic back to school period of September and October. This is traditionally serves as a boost for notebook sales, but the economic outlook is having varied depressive effects on the industry in general.

Intel Haswell desktops could account for as much as 30 percent of all desktop shipments for the third quarter, above the 10-20 percent in notebooks, so Digitimes believes channel retailers are pinning their hopes on the former.

Ivy Bridge inventories, still reportedly high, will be the main focus for the channel – so Haswell models with touchscreen features may not be promoted until the beginning of 2014.

If correct, a way to read this is Ivy Bridge PC prices could be knocked down for the back to school period, and almost certainly will become cheaper when efforts are concentrated on Haswell next year.

Cash strapped consumers and cautious businesses may not want to upgrade to the highest end gear either, save enthusiast communities. As a result, there will be an effort to popularise low end gear, with cheaper kit coming out like Atoms in Q3 and more affordable Kabini laptops.

High street must evolve or die

Posted on August 6, 2013 by - News

highstreetA retail company is calling out for a change in the way the high street manages and expects upticks in sales.

Powa Technologies CEO Dan Wagner suggested it is ridiculous to rely on the weather for an upturn in sales when the country is in search of wider improvements in economic performance. “There should be a greater emphasis on innovation that engages more directly with consumers to deliver more activity at the tills,” Wagner said.

Online shopping has transformed the way people buy and the high street has struggled to keep up. Of course, high street stores were bound to have a hard time if they clung to old models, which has lead to the death or transformation of what were once givens in any town centre.

Convenience has trumped the bricks and mortar approach for many people. Especially when it comes to delivering content, microtransactions online get that content to whichever device you prefer so much faster than a bricks and mortar shop, it’s unsurprising that many film and music outlets have faltered.

But this won’t necessarily mean the death of the high street.

“New shopping models involve convenient delivery and collection methods, more enjoyable methods of browsing, and quick means of payment,” Wagner said. “We shouldn’t be anticipating the loss of the high street, we should be anticipating its evolution”.

Just where that evolution will go depends on companies being prepared to take risks. One possible model is a hybrid approach, where consumers can buy online and collect in store or vice versa in interactive showrooms.

Tablet shipments slow right down

Posted on August 6, 2013 by - News

cheap-tabletsThe tablet market appears to be overheating and according to IDC’s latest report global shipments slowed down in the second quarter. It appears that many consumers are waiting for new iPads and cheap Androids are not filling the gap.

IDC said unit sales dropped 9.7 percent to 45.1 million last quarter thanks to soft demand for iPads. Shipments of Apple’s tablets dropped to just 14.6 million units, down from 19.5 million in the first quarter. IDC’s original forecast was 17 million, but it appears consumers had other things in mind.

Despite the dip, Apple is still the daddy of the tablet market, with a 32.4 percent market share. For some reason Samsung managed to grab an 18-percent share, despite the fact that its tablets are overpriced and underspecced.

Thanks to its massive market share, Apple’s woes tend to have an immediate effect on overall unit sales. The trouble for Apple is that it simply does not have any fresh products to offer. The iPad and iPad mini are getting old and a refresh is expected over the next few of months. Consumers are simply putting off their purchases until Cupertino rolls out something new, i.e. a Retina iPad mini.

“A new iPad launch always piques consumer interest in the tablet category and traditionally that has helped both Apple and its competitors,” said Tom Mainelli, Research Director, Tablets at IDC. “With no new iPads, the market slowed for many vendors, and that’s likely to continue into the third quarter. However, by the fourth quarter we expect new products from Apple, Amazon, and others to drive impressive growth in the market.”

A long Apple drought seems to be just what the doctor ordered for makers of Android tablets, but they don’t appear to be capitalizing on iPad fatigue.

Asus shipped just 2 million units for a 4.5 percent share. Lenovo was in a close second with 1.5 million units and Acer is in hot pursuit with 1.4 million.

To be fair, Android peddlers also had their share of problems. New high-end designs based on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 800 have yet to materialize, Nvidia’s Tegra 4 was delayed and the first products have started shipping just a few days ago, at the very end of the second quarter. The new Nexus 7 is out, but it also launched too late to make a mark in Q2.

However, IDC believes new tablets from both camps should have a massive effect on shipments toward the end of the year. As for Windows RT and Windows 8.x tablets, we’re not sure they’ll make much headway this year.

Accenture gears up for multichannel push

Posted on August 6, 2013 by - News

accenture-logoAccenture has teamed up with Hubris to implement cross-border multichannel solutions more effectively. Accenture is now the sole global strategic partner of hybris, the world’s fastest growing commerce platform.

The unholy alliance should combine Accenture’s prowess in digital marketing, platform management and customer experience with hubris’ leading omni-channel software. The companies hope to peddle commerce solutions to enterprises in retail, manufacturing, wholesale distribution, telecommunications, media/publishing, software and gaming.

“We have seen huge growth in e-commerce in the last few years, often driven by global brands looking for complex platform solutions, but with the ability to offer local languages and market websites for customers,” said Frank Schoutissen, Vice President Channel of hubris. “Our alliance with Accenture will allow these companies to have both a technology and implementation partner that can help them meet these objectives. We are very excited about the potential this will bring to both companies and the customers we can support as a result of this.”

Anatoly Roytman, EALA managing director of digital consulting for Accenture Interactive, said Accenture can help bring the hybris’ omni-channel commerce platform to companies that have struggled to implement worldwide transaction solutions that can be tailored to local country needs.

“Our global presence can reduce the complexity and cost of transforming the consumer transaction experience across multiple geographic markets,” he added.

The agreement should enable international brands to create consistent consumer transaction experiences across multiple channels, including online, mobile and in-store, regardless of geographic location.

Heatwave reheats British retail in July

Posted on August 6, 2013 by - News

highstreet South endJuly appears to have been a great month for British retailers and they have mother nature, a tennis player and a baby to thank for it.

According to the British Retail Consortium and KPMG, sales were up 3.9 percent, against a 2.0 percent increase in July 2012, the fastest July growth since 2006. In real terms, total growth was 4.4 percent, the fastest since April 2011.

Since much of the growth was fuelled by hot weather, fashion outlets and the food sector did particularly well. However, online sales grew by just 7.9 percent, much lower than the 15.6 percent in July 2012. Home accessories, furniture and home textiles were the worst performing sectors, as most people chose to buy flip-flops and barbecue sauce instead of new carpets and Allen key loving flat-pack furniture.

“Food has performed very strongly, with summer barbecue ingredients and feel-good foods doing well during a month where the Lions, Murray, Chris Froome in the Tour de France and the start of the Ashes series all contributed to the positive summer feeling;” said Helen Dickinson, director general of the BRC. “Clothing has also had a very good month, which was down to good weather spurring summer fashion buys and some very good discounting.”

David McCorquodale, Head of Retail, KPMG, said July was a “golden month” for retail sales and a return to form for British retailers.

“Hopefully this uptick in sales is another indication that the UK economy has turned the corner towards growth. Murray mania, summer sun and the arrival of the royal baby gave consumers that much needed feel good factor, encouraging them to leave caution behind and help retailers put in a champion performance,” he said. ‪”With autumn ranges now hitting the shelves, retailers need some cooler weather to encourage consumers to treat themselves to some new winter woollies. If they get these new ranges right and suitable weather, it could be game, set and match.”‬‬‬

Avnet wins EU Cisco contract

Posted on August 5, 2013 by - News

avnettsMassive global distie Avnet has won the first EMEA contract from Cisco to supply Cisco UCS servers running SAP HANA, which will let resellers approach SAP customers all over Europe.

UCS lets customers run data analytics and warehousing in real time, quick, as well as providing the base for running other SAP enterprise applications on SAP HANA. The idea is that by using Cisco UCS for SAP HANA, customers will get simplified management, scalability, operational automation, and a range of quality storage options, helping them exercise greater control of critical enterprise applications.

Avnet EMEA veep Miriam Murphy said in a statement that in-memory computing should be expanding rapidly in Europe, as companies look for products that will help them make data driven business decisions quickly and on the fly.

“We can install the SAP in-memory computing platform and ship the rack mounted servers in as little as three days from receiving an order on most models,” Murphy said, “placing our partners in pole position to address new SAP customers”

Cisco’s director of partner operations for EMEA said the company had been working with SAP on HANA since 2010, and chose Avnet for the first European distributor considering its experience with Cisco and capabilities to built to order, plus the company’s logistic strengths.

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