PC sales in the country fell 2% in 2012, according to IDC

After two years of strong growth, the Brazilian market for personal computers has lost the pace in 2012. According to research firm IDC, the market had a 2% drop in sales last year, adding up to 15.5 million units, with 8.9 million laptops (notebooks, netbooks and ultrabooks) and 6.6 million desktops. It was the first decline in sales since 2009. With the performance of 2012, Brazil, occupying the third place in global PC sales, dropped to fourth place, behind China, United States and Japan.
Declining sales in Brazil were in line with the rest of the world (fall of almost 4%). To 2013, it is expected that the Brazilian market has underperformed the global average. The projection of a 7.2% decline in sales, totaling 14.4 million machines. In the world, the market will shrink 1.3 percent.
According to IDC, the poor performance in Brazil 2012 is linked to changes in consumer preferences, which opted for cheaper devices like tablets and smartphones. Last year, sales of tablets came to 3.1 million units, an increase of 171%. Sales of smartphones already advanced 78%, reaching 16 million. In addition to searching for other devices, the Brazilians have committed their budgets with products such as cars and appliances of white line, which had reduced taxes. Residential consumers are the biggest buyers of PCs in the country, with 66.6% of the total. Other 26.7% will go to the enterprise and 6.7% for Government and education.
IDC estimates that the market for PCs in Brazil will have average annual growth of 0.9% by 2017, when it will be sold 16.2 million of equipment. For smartphones and tablets, the projections are more promising. Until 2017, the forecast is that sales of tablets 29.5% in annual average growth, reaching 11.4 million units. Smartphones will have average expansion of 32.9% to 66.3 million units in 2017, the equivalent or 71.7% of all phones.