Goldman Sachs reduced its forecast on quarterly notebook shipment growth to 1%

Goldman Sachs today has reduced its forecast on quarterly notebook shipment growth in the fourth quarter of 2008 from 6% to only 1%, while shipments in the first quarter of 2009 will drop 18% sequentially.

On November 19, Goldman Sachs is projecting a 5 percent decline in 2009 in developed economies (the United States, Western Europe, and Japan), or 65 percent of IT spending, compared with 4 percent expected growth in 2008 and 7 percent growth in 2007. The slowdown will span all vertical markets (financial services, communications, and so on).

The good news is Goldman Sachs expects IT spending in developing economies, which accounts for 35 percent of IT spending, to hit 7 percent growth in 2009

The report notes that Dell and Hewlett-Packard are gaining in share of server dollars spent, while Sun Microsystems and IBM are losing share. Dell took the No. 1 spot through aggressive discounting, while HP's share remains strong due to its strength in blade computing, according to the report. IBM is apparently being hit by its System x servers, down 18 percent year over year.

For the first time IBM has ever been a share-loser in the history of Goldman Sachs' survey, reflecting "lagging product sets."

Microsoft’ gains apparently come from enterprise product upgrades like SQL Server and SharePoint Server, according to the report.

Chart courtesy of Goldman Sachs via CNet News
According to the report, 52 percent of survey respondents are planning decreased budgets for 2008 in the past three months, which will almost certainly minimize a fourth-quarter budget flush. Indeed, 41 percent of respondents say that their "end-of-year IT spending activity will be less than recent years," and only 17 percent expect fourth-quarter IT spending to increase.

Chart courtesy of Goldman Sachs via CNet News
Market intelligence firm IDC on November 12, said worldwide IT spending will grow just 2.6 percent in 2009 compared with the previous year, down from the IDC's pre-crisis forecast of 5.9 percent growth. IDC expects IT spending to return to growth rates approaching 6.0 percent in 2012 but estimates more than 300 billion dollars in industry revenues will have been lost due to slower spending over the next four years.

Related Posts :

Spending in IT to slowdown; Microsoft to offer 0% Financing

Sources :

1. Digitimes Systems: Goldman Sachs trims 4Q08 notebook shipment growth to 1%, says paper, November 28, 2008
2. CNet News: Silver lining in Goldman Sachs' projected decline in IT spending, November 19, 2008 11:07 AM PST

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