IDC Asia-Pacific has been shuffling its tarot cards and has seen rebound of the PC market in the first quarter of 2012 as well as a tall dark stranger entering its life. Such predictions are optimistic as they follow a 33 percent decline in the fourth quarter of 2011.

Juan-Jin Ng, market analyst for personal systems research at IDC said that 2012 is  more promising. He said that the hard disk drive (HDD) supply will normalise by April 2012, there will be public segment rollouts in the Philippines and consumer demand from the launch of Intel's new Ivy Bridge processor.

The Philippines is a good bellwether as it was hit hard by hard disk drive (HDD) supply shortages since manufacturing plants in Thailand had their operations thrown into disarray by severe flooding. The strengthening peso against the US dollar meant that the remittances of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) were worth less than before. In addition, the seasonal typhoons that hit Metro Manila further put pressure on consumer spending.

Mini-notebooks, which are usually the major contributor to the Philippine PC market, faced the most significant drop in the fourth quarter of 2011 at 44 per cent. Telco bundling programs for smart phones were dead in the water in  fourth quarter and this too affected overall mini-notebook shipments.