Australia's PC market is still going gangbusters, recording second-quarter growth of 14.4 percent and sequential growth of 8.6 percent in latest Gartner statistics.

But x86 server demand drives growth.

Latest statistics from Gartner suggest that big-name vendors in Australia sold 24 percent more PCs last year than in the previous year and 7.8 percent more PCs this quarter.

Australians are still not buying into the converged digital home concept despite huge sales of devices in the category, according to research by channel analyst GfK.

Global mobile-phone sales increased 34 percent in the first quarter of the year, as a surprising number of people choose to upgrade to flashy phones with built-in cameras and colour screens, a market-research firm said Tuesday.

The Australian PC market grew 9.6 percent in the first calendar quarter compared to the final quarter of 2003, driven by strong notebook sales, according to figures released by IDC.

Printer sales in Australia fell 12 percent in the fourth quarter of 2003 to 390,000 units, and are expected to fall another 13 percent for the full year 2004, IDC said.

Australian PC sales were strong in calendar 2003 with the market growing 16.1 percent compared to 2002, according to data released by market researcher Gartner.

Unemployment levels in ICT have stayed above the national average despite an increase in jobs, according to the Australian Computer Society.

For the first time since the fourth quarter of 2001, notebook manufacturer Toshiba has lost its top market share position, knocked off in Q2 this year by HP.

A new survey has found that fulltime employment in Australia’s information and communications technology (ICT) sector had grown, while unemployment remained ‘unacceptably high’.

The 'thin client' computing market grew by almost 50 percent in Australia last year due to reduced costs and increased security, said industry analyst IDC.

The mobile phone industry had a record first quarter with 180.6 million units sold worldwide.

The worldwide broadband internet boom continued in the third quarter of last year, with the Middle East and Africa posting double-digit growth figures, research has suggested.

Interactive games are set to dominate the entertainment industry by 2008, said PriceWaterhouseCoopers' senior manager Matthew Liebmann at the Australian Game Developers Conference this morning.