Gartner says indirect sales to dominate PC shipments by 2012

Global research firm believes PC customer buying preferences will continue to push the PC market from direct to indirect during the next four years, giving a boost to resellers.

According to Gartner, this will force manufacturers to do a better job of customer segmentation and go-to-market strategies.

The indirect channel accounted for 66.6 percent worldwide PC shipments in 2004, and it grew to account for 74.3 percent of shipments in 2008 due to emerging market expansion.

Tiffani Bova, research vice president at Gartner, said the direct sales channel was still showing customer preference in certain segments such as enterprise, government and education and some professional segments in mature markets.

"However, strong consumer and small office/home office (SOHO) market growth will lead to consistent growth for the retail channel," she said.

"We can expect to see growth from a variety of nontraditional PC retailers such as Wal-Mart and Price Club in the US and Carrefour and Courts in Asia/Pacific."

Bova said telecom retailers will also begin to play a much more active role as a viable mobile PC channel, especially with mini-notebooks that are being bundled with remote access (third-generation [3G] contracts) in Western Europe, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan and the US.

Direct market resellers (DMRs) will be the fastest-growing indirect sales channel - although the market size will be relatively small at less than five percent of the total market by 2012 - and will continue to play a crucial role in any PC manufacturers' go-to-market (GTM) market model, especially in the US.

Gartner said that the burgeoning indirect channel will be driven by strong growth of products focused on the home and small and midsize (SMB) customers in both mature and emerging markets that show a preference for purchasing via indirect channels (retail and VAR).

For the home and SOHO segment, most customers prefer retailers for their PC purchases, allowing them to shop for multiple brands, features and functionality and price, all in one place.