The recent widespread adoption of netbooks (such as the LG X120) and other mobile PCs has driven global PC sales enough for Gartner Inc. to change their minds about their current outlook on the global PC market. Earlier this year, Gartner predicted an 11.9% decrease in total PC shipments for 2009, but now have changed their forecasts to say that PC sales will likely reach 162 million units this year for an increase of 15.4% over sales in 2008.
They looked at Windows 7, but concluded that it wasn't driving a lot of PC sales or at least not as much as netbooks did. But that's not surprising, since most users won't need new PCs just to run Windows 7 as they did when Windows Vista was first launched. A Gartner analyst also noted that while netbook sales may be driving the overall PC market upward, the netbook market itself has seen slowing in its growth, possibly because of increased competition from other mobile devices (i.e. smartphones and recently, smartbooks).
Source: [Computerworld]
