Michael Dell sees consolidation among PC makers in next few years

The top three global PC makers would be able to raise market share in the next few years through consolidation amid shrinking sales of personal computers, Dell Inc Chief Executive Michael Dell said on Monday.

Lenovo Group Ltd tops global PC shipment ranking with a 20.3 percent market share, followed by Hewlett-Packard Co at 18.5 percent and Dell at 14.5 percent, according to research firm International Data Corp.

The top three companies could corner about 80 percent of the market in the next 5 to 7 years, Dell said at a roundtable conference with journalists in Bengaluru, India.

"In the first half of this year, we outgrew the two in notebooks and we have grown now 10 quarters in a row," Dell said.

IDC last month forecast PC shipments to fall 8.7 percent this year, steeper than its earlier estimate of a 6.2 percent decline, and said they are expected to return to growth in 2017.

Once the leader in personal computers sales, Dell, like its peers, has been hit by a rapidly declining PC market as consumers move to smartphones and tablets.

The PC maker was taken private in a $24.9 billion buyout in 2013 by its CEO and his private equity partner, Silver Lake, after months of battling with investors who claimed the offer undervalued the company.

"Being a private company has certainly allowed us to focus our future more on 3 years, 5 years, 10 years out and get away from the short-term orientation that public companies often find themselves in," he said.

Michael Dell has been trying to transform the company he founded in 1984 into a complete provider of enterprise computing services such as HP or IBM.

"We have been able to grow even though the (PC) market is shrinking and of course our business goes well beyond the device into data center, software, services and security," Dell said.

Dell, however, said that the company does not plan to enter the smart phone business, unlike rival Microsoft Corp, which bought Nokia's phone business in 2014.

"I think there are maybe only one or two companies who make a profit in the smart phone business today and there are quite a few companies that lose substantial sums of money in the smartphone business," Dell said.

"So, no thank you! I do not want to be in the smartphone business."

(Reporting by Supantha Mukherjee and Abhirup Roy in Bengaluru Editing by W Simon)

via Reuter