Europe's PC market is 'technically' in recession as it has contracted for two consecutive quarters.
Overall PC shipments declined by 9.8% year-on-year in 2Q09, according to market-watcher IDC.
Biggest falls came in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), recording a 40% drop in PC sales.
The PC market in Western Europe also remained negative, but fared better than expected down by -2.5%, helped by demand for mini notebooks stimulated consumer demand.
So it is Western Europe's consumers who are still most likely to be found buying PCs, even if they have moved to low-priced entry-level systems and more affordable mini notebooks, or netbooks.
As a result, the Western European consumer portable PC market continued to expand by a robust 32.9% in 2Q09.
"As expected, the mini notebook segment in EMEA remained buoyant and with another 2.6 million units shipped in 2Q09, we're looking at 5.3 million units for the first six months of the year," said Eszter Morvay, research manager, IDC EMEA Personal Computing.
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