Research firm Gartner Dataquest have found that worldwide PC shipment figures were increased by only 10% and not the by 17% that Gartner had originally predicted. The reason for this was stated as the slowdown of the US economy and a market saturation of the PC.

Many computer manufacturers such as Apple, Gateway, chip makers Intel and software giants Microsoft have all reported a downturn in profits in the fourth quarter of trading, which also coincided with the christmas shopping season.

The slowdown in PC sales was also partly blamed on the Year 2000 bug, which led to many businesses replacing their PCs in the year previous.

The only businesses reported to have beaten the average industry growth rates were Dell and Hewlett Packard both in the US and worldwide in 2000. Dell achieved 10.8%, HP gained 7.6% and Compaq Compaq are still the largest with 12.8% world market share.