'We do check the numbers they give us against the reseller channel and also with figures given at a regional level to make sure there's no problem.'

Gunson says occasionally there are discrepancies between two sets of figures but there's usually a good reason for that, such as overlapping time frames or sales being counted in a different country.

'It's not to try to fudge the figures.'

Gunson says Acer, for example, had a very strong third quarter last year in New Zealand and shipped a large volume of notebooks.

'But in the fourth quarter it came back quite a bit so we take that to mean the channel is well stocked now.'