Bulgaria’s hardware providers are struggling as their sales are down for a sixth quarter in a row.

All major distributors of hardware on the Bulgarian are registering staggering decreases, according to a report for the last quarter of 2009 of the market research agency CBN – Pannoff, Stoytcheff and Co., as cited by technews.bg.

The report points out that the expect growth of laptop sales in Bulgaria is failing to materialize, and that even the sales of mobile phones are down unexpectedly. The analysis concludes that entire sectors of the Bulgarian hardware market are struggling for survival – the latest one to be hit hard by the crisis being the market of printers.

According to CBN, the downturn is affecting very negatively the hardware distributors, six of which are listed by Bulgaria’s National Revenue Agency as large-scale taxpayers.

Technews cites a separate report of CBN stating that “the government is doing whatever it can under these circumstances. The relatively high volumes of hardware orders for Q4 2009 under the Public Procurement Act are surprising.”

The market research agency, however, has expressed concerns over the level of expert knowledge of the commissions executing the public procurement orders on part of state institutions which might endanger the proper renewal of the equipment of a number of national information systems.

The CBN says it has to warn the hardware distributors in Bulgaria about the worrying market trends as early as the beginning of 2009; however, the sector has failed to develop an anti-crisis program unlike other business sectors in the country such as construction, tourism, and car trading.

The market research agency, however, has pointed out that the situation seems to resemble a W-shaped curve with the downturn in hardware sales in the last quarter of 2009 being a second bottom. Thus, the Bulgarian hardware market is expected to reach at least zero growth in the second quarter of 2010.

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