48.3 million PCs shipped in 2006 in Asia/Pacific region

IDC's preliminary results show that the Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) PC market totaled 13.1 million units in the fourth quarter of 2006, representing a 2% sequential growth and a 14% year-on-year growth. Total 4Q06 shipments for the region came in just 2% below than IDC's initial forecasts, and, save for Taiwan, all the countries managed to grow year-on-year during the quarter.

"Despite the political upheaval in some parts of Asia in 2006, the PC market proved highly resilient with 17% annual growth. Spurred by increasingly affordable models and healthy competition among the vendors, interest in notebooks also reached record levels,” said Bryan Ma, Director of Asia/Pacific Personal Systems Research at IDC. "2007 should grow by at least 15%, which is slightly lower than 2006 due to the increasing sizes of the markets, but is still very healthy with the weight of key markets such as China and India behind it."