ConsumerIT - For Europe's High Volume PC Retailers, Distributors & Builders

The Czech finance group PPF Group now holds 50% of Eldorado, the Russian consumer electronics and household appliances retailer. Eldorado knows the finance group well as the retailer’s main consumer credit partners belong to the PPF Group.

"I am very proud of the success of the EEC," says Alex Sozonoff, Chairman and President of the European Wholesale Group (EEC), as he annnounced the dissolution of this Europe-wide IT distribution group. 

EWG began at the end of 2002 with four members - the Swiss ALSO Holding AG, the Dutch Copaco NV, the Italian Esprinet SpA and the British wholesaler West Coast. 

The declared aim was to unite for a shopping benefit and grow the group geographically.  A close partnership with Hewlett-Packard, Canon and Fujitsu Siemens was created. The EWG partners six years ago were in only five countries, today it is sixteen.  During the same period, the alliance's total turnover (now 6.1 billion euros) more than doubled.  

GfK says consumer IT is holding up demand in 2008 when traditional IT vectors seem to have disappeared.

While consumer notebook units were up 33% in W. Europe, the biggest shift is in “desktop replacements”, i.e., those large screen notebooks. The trend to micro notebooks below 11” (while impressive at +90%) is still marginal within the product mix.

Market demand is more sophisticated than anticipated and will continue to astonish (as did the trend towards larger monitors on the “desktop”). Not only will this help sustain the market, but it highlights the potential for AiOs and home servers, once a proper positioning has been found.

In W. Europe, the price of notebook lost 200 euros vs last year (example: in week 31: 621 euros incl. VAT (when excluding any notebooks below 11”) against 819 euros in 2007 and 915 in 2006.

Other IT Categories (chart)

A former star category, printers, seems to be slowing down as the installed base is happier using the printers already bought than purchasing new hardware. Hence a positive trend in cartridges vs a slower one in hardware.

GO GfK Future of Global IT Markets

The browser is the key to accessing web apps, so it's no surprise to see Google jump into the development of browser technology. And, of course, when they jump feet-first they land right on top of Microsoft and Internet Explorer. 

Chrome is now available as a free download.

GO Chrome