At the end of the third quarter of 1997, an increase of 18 percent was seen in the Asia/Pacific PC market, in spite of the currency meltdown in Southeast Asia and recent stock market tremors throughout the region. This news is encouraging not only for Asia's IT businesses but also its professionals. According to a recent report by Dataquest, a market research unit of the Gartner Group Inc, more than 27 percent of total PC units sold in the region were to China alone. China was seen as the main reason for such strong PC market growth simply because it remained undisturbed by the Asian currency crisis. This growth within China confirms recent reports that recruitment within the country in the IT industry is expanding, and looks set to be for quite some time. Other countries which had a positive quarter were Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, and Australia.

In other developments, Compaq, which has led the Asian PC market for eight consecutive quarters, fell at the end of 1997 to Samsung, despite Korea's recent economic downturn. Samsung made 158,020 shipments to Compaq's 149,690. In third place was Acer with 147,842 units shipped.