Dell sees consolidation among PC makers
08 Sep 2015
The top three global PC makers would be able to raise market share in the next few years through consolidation amid shrinking sales of personal computers, Dell Inc chief executive Michael Dell said.
Lenovo Group Ltd tops global PC shipment ranking with a 20.3 per cent market share, followed by Hewlett-Packard Co at 18.5 per cent and Dell at 14.5 per cent, according to research firm International Data Corp.
The top three companies could corner about 80 per cent of the market in the next five to seven years, Dell said at a roundtable conference with journalists in Bengaluru.
"In the first half of this year, we outgrew the two in notebooks and we have grown now 10 quarters in a row," Dell said.
IDC last month forecast PC shipments to fall 8.7 per cent this year, steeper than its earlier estimate of a 6.2 per cent decline, and said they are expected to return to growth in 2017.
Once the leader in personal computers sales, Dell, like its peers, has been hit by a rapidly declining PC market as consumers move to smartphones and tablets.
The PC maker was taken private in a $24.9-billion buyout in 2013 by its CEO and his private equity partner, Silver Lake, after months of battling with investors who claimed the offer undervalued the company (See: Dell shareholders approve Michael Dell's $25-bn offer).
"Being a private company has certainly allowed us to focus our future more on three years, five years, 10 years out and get away from the short-term orientation that public companies often find themselves in," he said.
Michael Dell has been trying to transform the company he founded in 1984 into a complete provider of enterprise computing services such as HP or IBM.
"We have been able to grow even though the (PC) market is shrinking and of course our business goes well beyond the device into data centre, software, services and security," Dell said.
Dell, however, said that the company does not plan to enter the smartphone business, unlike rival Microsoft Corp, which bought Nokia's phone business in 2014.
"I think there are maybe only one or two companies who make a profit in the smartphone business today and there are quite a few companies that lose substantial sums of money in the smartphone business," Dell said.
