Hanoi Times - Doan Hong Viet, Director of Digiworld, a distributor of digital products in Vietnam, said that the desktop computer market share is decreasing, while the demand for laptops is increasing.

Viet has estimated that the desktop computer market share has decreased to 80%, of which 15% are complete-built-unit (CBU) computers of famous domestic and foreign brand names like HP, Acer, Dell and CMS, while the other 65% are computers assembled from separate accessories. 

In the first eight months of the year, o­nly 70,000 desktop computers were imported, a decrease of 8.5% over the same period of last year. 

In July and August 2008, the months that domestic computer manufacturers and computer importers hoped to see the biggest sales (the school year season), computer imports were just equal to 45% of the imports of 2007’s July and August. 

Domestic desktop computer assembly companies like CMS and FPT Elead also have products available o­n sale at this moment. CMS, for example, has launched 30,000 computers o­nto the market, but the computers mostly serve projects and national programmes. FPT Elead also said that most of its clients are projects.

Meanwhile, sales of laptops are tending to increase. Despite the decreased commodity purchasing power, the total number of laptops imported from May to August still reached 116,000 units. 

Ta Bang Thanh, Head of the Strategic Product Business Division under FPT Distributions, said that the total number of laptops that had been imported to Vietnam by the end of August was equal to the total for all of 2007.  

“It is estimated that the laptop market will see a 35% growth rate this year,” Thanh said.Laptop distributors say the laptop market is growing well thanks to sharp price decreases. 

Viet from Digiworld said that the best-selling laptops are the models priced between $500-600/unit. The sales of such models account for nearly 40% of total laptop sales. The second biggest-seller is products priced between $650 and $800 (21.6%), followed by those from $800-1,000 (9.8%). 

Businessmen have forecast the laptop market will also see strong growth in 2009, with laptop sales accounting for 30% of the total computer market.

HP is the brand name which has seen the highest growth rate this year, at 38.7% (only official imports were counted). Acer ranked second with a 35% growth rate, followed by Lenovo IBM, 15%.