Global personal computer (PC) shipments will drop over 8 percent in the first half of 2009, but will gradually improve to a small positive growth in the fourth quarter, resulting in a 4.5-percent decrease for the year, market research company IDC predicted on Thursday.

The prospect is worse than IDC's earlier forecast. In last December, it projected that worldwide PC shipments will grow 3.8 percent in 2009.

According to IDC's updates of the PC market, worldwide PC shipments decreased 1.9 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008 following five years of almost uninterrupted double-digit growth.

Gartner, another research company, this week painted a similar, somewhat grimmer picture, saying global PC shipments are expected to suffer sharpest decline of 11.9 percent in 2009.

However, IDC also expressed some optimism about the PC industry.

"To be sure, the PC market is in for a bumpy ride," Loren Loverde, an IDC director, said in a statement.

"Nevertheless, there are a number of reasons why the PC market will not fare dramatically worse in the current environment than it did in the 2001 recession -- even if the current economic environment is notably worse," he said.

"Pricing will become even more aggressive, and there will be further consolidation, but the PC industry will not go the way of the financial or auto industries in this cycle," he noted.

PCs are now far more important and cost half what it did in 2000 and prices continue to drop at a rapid rate, making PCs more affordable and less likely to be sacrificed in tough times, IDC said.

Today's PC market is also more driven by replacements than it used to be. A larger share of existing systems will need to be replaced sooner, IDC said, adding that portable computers have risen to account for half the PC market share, which typically have a shorter lifespan than desktops.

(Xinhua News Agency March 6, 2009)