Over 45% Of Worldwide PCs @ Home.

In 2001 the worldwide number of PCs-in-use topped 600M units. In the next six years this number will nearly double to over 1.15B PCs-in-use by year-end 2007 for a compound annual growth of 11.4%. The U.S. has the largest number of PCs-in-use with 175M at year-end 2001, but the growth will slow and will increase by only 6.2% per year to reach 251M units in 2007. Despite yearly PC sales of over 40M units in the U.S., the annual increase in PCs-in-use will only grow by 13M+ per year due to over 70% PC replacement rates.

The PC replacement rates are much lower in other regions and Asia-Pacific will become the leading region in PCs-in-use by the end of 2002 despite lower annual PC sales than the U.S. Asia-Pacific will reach 367M units PCs-in-use in 2007. W. Europe will also surpass the installed base of PCs in the USA by 2004. Cell phone subscribers surpassed PCs-in-use in Asia-Pacific in 1997, in W. Europe in 1999 and worldwide in 2000. The U.S. still has more PCs-in-use than cell phone subscribers and this will not change until 2004 or 2005. To view chart CLICK above on ‘More Images’.

“PCs-in-use will approach saturation in the U.S. soon after 2010 at 300M+ units”, says Dr. Egil Juliussen, the author of the report. “Despite approaching saturation, annual PC sales in the USA will be in the 60M range after 2010 due to PC replacement sales every five years for most PC users.” The worldwide PC market will not approach saturation until 2015 or later when PCs-in-use will reach the 1.7B unit range.