Despite intense industry efforts to overcome market inertia, 2012 nonetheless ended on a sour note with global PC shipment volume shrinking 3.7% on the year.
In the fourth quarter of 2012, worldwide server shipments declined 0.2 percent year-on-year, while revenue increased 5.1 percent from the fourth quarter of 2011.
The expected steady increase in mobile traffic is partly due to continued strong growth in the number of mobile Internet connections (personal devices and machine-to-machine applications), which will exceed the world?s population (United Nations estimates 7.6 billion).
IT spending remained broadly strong throughout a difficult end to 2012 as business confidence waned in the shadow of the "fiscal cliff?," economic growth declined in much of Europe, and economies in Asia struggled to cope with reduced exports.
A survey has suggested that data center investment cycles are contracting, which fundamentally changes the approach that data center professionals must follow when considering short- and longer-term infrastructure deployments.
The world?s leading notebook PC original design manufacturers (ODM) will endure a bleak first quarter and slow first half in 2013, before ultrathin PC sales help revive the market later in the year.
