Brazil has 18 million PC’s

03/19/2003 Computerworld

Unlike other research institutes that have registered a decline in the sales of microcomputers, the 14th. Annual Research of Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV) School of Business of São Paulo points out that in April, the installed base of PC’s in Brazil will be 18 million. In FGV’s study, it was confirmed that there was a 10% growth in this segment in 2002.

For this year, the administrative vice-director of FGV and responsible person for the elaboration of the study, Fernando Meirelles, informs the prevision is that nearly 4.4 million PC’s will be sold in Brazil. He believes that in a maximum time period of 2 years, the installed base should jump to 25 million.

“Even with the whole crisis that comprehended last year, PC’s were sold in the country in the corporate market, as well as to the final user. However, it is clear that the so-called “gray” market has a great penetration in relation to medium sized companies and domestic market”, comments Meirelles.

To realize the study, FGV received answers from more than 1,400 medium and large corporations. “We didn’t ask the brand of PC utilized, only how many machines are in the production”, he emphasizes.

The study still revealed that the corporations invested 4,7% of their net billing in IT in 2002. For this year, the forecast is that there will be a small growth in relation to last year. “It is worth mentioning that in 2001, this index was 4.5%. This proves there really was growth in money allotted in the IT areas of companies”, clarifies Meirelles.

However, the annual cost per keyboard – total expenditures and investments during the year and divided by the number of keyboards – fell 20% in dollars and came to US$10,000 due to, of course, the exchange rate variation in 2002. Exactly for this, the cost in real (R$) increased 10% reaching R$31,000.

Among the companies surveyed, the Pentium III is the largest installed base of processors, corresponding to 39%. The Pentium II has 29% participation and the Pentium I takes 18%. The Pentium IV already corresponds to 10%. The x86 machines are only 2% of the market, index that is also found for the other processors in the market.

Questioned as to if the year 2003 would be promising for a renewal of the existant hardware, Meirelles says that he doesn’t believe in this hypothesis. For the executive, only with effective consolidation of 64 bit technology – which is beginning to gain more force in the market –there will be the necessity to migrate to a different processor. “Today, it is possible to run applications, with more memory, in a Pentium II”, he exemplifies.

Even though optmistic with the year 2003, the FGV executive makes it clear that he isn’t counting on the government projects – among them FUST – as an instrument for the leverage of PC’s. The average of 4.4 million new machines this year, doesn’t count on the participation of this program (FUST foresees the acquisition of more than 400 thousand PC’s for 13 thousand schools in the whole country).

“I don’t count on this. Sales will increase because there is a tendency for the informatization of small and medium companies, likewise the final user also wants to have a machine at home”, concludes the executive.
[ Ana Paula Lobo ]