West Europe Q4 PC market grew 12 pct y/y -Gartner

HELSINKI Feb 3 (Reuters) - Sales of personal computers grew 12 percent in Western Europe to 20.1 million units in the fourth quarter of 2008, boosted by strong demand for small notebooks, research firm Gartner said on Tuesday.

The global PC industry was resilient for most of last year when other technology sectors were ailing, but it too has now been caught up in the deepening economic downturn that has hit demand from consumers and corporate buyers. [ID:nTP33304]

"If it wasn't for mini-notebooks, the overall Western European market would be showing a decline. This does not bode well for 2009, as we expect the general economic conditions to worsen," said Ranjit Atwal, principal analyst at Gartner.

All vendors in total sold roughly 2.5 million notebooks in the October-December quarter.

Hewlett-Packard (HPQ.N) and Acer (2353.TW) continued to dominate the market, with market shares of 23.2 percent and 20.3 percent, respectively. Dell (DELL.O) lost some share and controlled 10.1 percent of the market in the fourth quarter, Gartner said.

ASUS and Toshiba benefited the most from demand for notebooks and had 7.4 percent and 6.4 percent of the market, it said.

For 2008, PC shipments reached 66 million units in Western Europe, representing 17.2 percent growth from 2007. (Reporting by Tarmo Virki, editing by Will Waterman)