The IDC report -- which surveyed the whole of the Asia Pacific region - found that each year since the second quarter of 1999, PC sales have dropped by 10.1 percent.
Unlike last year, however, IDC says it's not the larger organisations holding off on upgrading computer systems, but the consumers.
It's not all doom and gloom according to IDC senior analyst Logan Ringland, who believes that end-users are waiting for the -next technological wave before they upgrade, and a processor is no longer being considered an upgrade."
-This illustrates an increased understanding of the IT from the public in general."
IDC says it is the first time in Australia's recorded history that the market has failed to achieve growth.
-...the market is about three percent down this year, and we have to remember that the second half of 2000 was quite strong with nearly 1.2 million units coming from it."
Compaq ahead
The report revealed that Compaq remained the number one vendor in Australia, with Dell following closely behind.
IBM, however, continued to struggle according to the report, with sales increasing by only five percent.
-...at least [IBM's] sales are moving in the right direction now which is more than can be said for HP," Ringland said.
-The vendor has managed to avoid to this point, the major recession in the market, however all good things come to an end with HP's sales sliding to a level not seen since the start of 1999."
Toshiba stood in fifth place amongst its competitors.
Ringland raises the question as to why the market is in such poor shape given indications from the government that the economy is on the rise?
-In order to entice the remaining folk to purchase, vendors are going to have to do a lot of research to find out exactly what they want, whether it be bundle, technology, form factor or price wise. Toshiba is an example of this by providing a wireless LAN card into one of its notebook, " Ringland said.
At last the truth is coming out - consumers are a very flakey part of the marketing equation. Australian consumers are very tight with their money and want free support - unsustainable for small businesses like mine to support. That is why keep away from consumer sales - too risky. There are a lot of do-it-yourselfers in the Australian consumer market - no money in it. Also the GST cleaned out $1000s from the cash available to buy things despite what the Government says.