Analysts at iSuppli have increased predictions for PC sales in 2007: global PC shipments will rise to 264 million units in 2007, up 11.2% from 239 million in 2006. The previous forecast envisioned 10.7 % growth for the year but iSuppli now expects notebooks to account for almost 40% of total 2007 PC market shipments. "Notebook PC shipments rose to 21.8 million units in the first quarter of 2007, up 23% from 17.7 million in the first quarter of 2006. First-quarter notebook PC shipments were 3% higher than we had previously anticipated. There were concerns that the second-quarter release of Intel"s new Santa Rosa notebook microprocessor platform might cause buyers to delay purchases originally set for the first quarter. However, Santa Rosa did not have a significant negative effect on first-quarter shipments," said Matthew Wilkins, iSuppli principal analyst for computer platforms.
The analysts also issued revised forecasts for the use of flash memory drives as a replacement for hard drives in laptops, predicting that flash-equipped portables would account for 12% of the market by the end of 2009. They also expect 35% of notebooks will be equipped with Hybrid Hard Drives (flash combined with hard drives) by the end of 2009. Intel"s Robson (Turbo Memory) is also expected to take off in 2007. The combination of SSDs, HHDs, Turbo Memory and other solutions will propel flash memory"s penetration of notebook data storage to nearly 60% by the fourth quarter of 2009, iSuppli predicts.