The United States has always been the single biggest market for PC sales, for many reasons. Now, a new study from IDC reports that for the first time China has exceeded the US in PC sales for the second quarter of 2011. IDC says that 18.5 million PC units shipped to China during the quarter compared to just 17.7 million units for the US. That means that, at least for the second quarter, China had 22 percent of the world"s PC market compared to 21 percent in the US.
However that achievement for China might be short lived. IDC says that for the entire year of 2011, the United States is still expected to ship 73.5 million units of PCs compared to 72.4 million in China. Part of the reason is that the holiday shopping season in the US should see a surge in PC sales along with a sales decline in China predicted in the third quarter of 2011. China is still expected to exceed the US in PC sales in 2012. IDC predicts that next year 85.2 million PC units should ship in China versus just 76.6 million units in the US. The numbers include shipments of desktops, notebooks and mini-notebooks. The IDC numbers don"t include shipments of tablet products or servers.