The personal computer (PC) market in the Chinese mainland will remain a growth engine of the Asia Pacific region with stable growth and price wars as its major themes in 2005, said US market research house Gartner Inc.

Gartner said in a report on the Asia Pacific PC market in 2005 that the market will grow 10.8 per cent in the region this year, and will ship 37.3 million units.

According to the research firm, 33 million computers were produced last year in the region, not including Japan, with almost 15 million units sold in the Chinese mainland, a 15 per cent increase year-on-year.

Gartner predicted the Chinese mainland, India, Malaysia, Thailand and Viet Nam will lead the market's growth in 2005.

Simon Ye, principal computer analyst with Gartner, estimated that the number of PCs shipped to the Chinese mainland will grow by 13 to 16 per cent this year.

He said the market will be driven by rising demand from the government and education sectors, and the public's increasing enthusiasm for home computer products, led by fierce price wars. The notebook sector will also see rapid growth with a drop in prices, and a shrinking of the gap between their prices and those of PCs.

US giant HP has launched notebook products at a starting price of 6,999 yuan (US$845), and Dell upped the ante with notebooks starting at 5,999 yuan (US$725) on Tuesday, in an attempt to win over desktop customers.

Gartner's Ye believed price wars and acquisitions will become an inevitable trend in the PC market, as competition becomes more focused on manufacturing and marketing efficiency.

However, Li Jianhang, vice-president of Tsinghua Tongfang Co Ltd, believed value will become a way of winning customers. Tongfang, Founder Technology and TCL have all formed partnerships with Microsoft. Tongfang decided to use Microsoft's Windows XP operating system on its T series products for high-end consumers and Chaoyang series for small and medium enterprises.

"The market at present is quite different from what has been previously seen, as operating systems are of increasing importance to computers," said Li.

Microsoft has launched the second phase of its Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) programme, which requires users in some countries to download a tool to validate the licence of their operating systems.

(China Daily March 11, 2005)