Romanian subsidiary of Dell PC manufacturer reported a 70% growth of units sold up to 73,733 in first nine months this year, and for the next quarter, the forecasts are likely to be revised downwards, due to financial crisis that affected individual consumers.

“For fourth quarter of this year, we had initially expected a growth above 50%, whereas it is hard to believe that we will be able to acquire this target, as the market underwent a lower growth pace in the past few months, as a consequence of the economic crisis. We’ve drafted our expectations in September, yet, the economic crisis deepened starting October”, Mihai Guran, country manager of Dell Romania and Bulgaria told Wall-Street.

According to Mihai Guran, the demand has weakened in certain market segments, especially in individual consumer segment, and it is hard to estimate. “Although the individual consumer segment weakened, there are still projects running that will probably influence the quarterly results”, Mihai Guran added.

In third quarter this year, the company shipped 22.548 computers, up 54% from a year earlier, 17,248 being portable computers, namely 73%, said Mihai Guran, quoting an IDC report.

“The two-digit nine-month results topped all our expectations. We shipped 73,733 computers, 52,399 of them being notebook computers, namely 89% growth,” Dell Romania’s country manager said.

In 2008, the notebook:desktop ratio tends to 1:1, whereas the company has not yet achieved this ratio.

“We will wait for the final quarterly results of this year, together with the impact of some governmental projects running in third and fourth quarter”, said Mihai Guran.