Worldwide sales of personal computers dropped for a
fifth consecutive quarter in the April-June period, the longest decline
in the PC market's history, a research firm said Wednesday.
The survey by Gartner found China's Lenovo edging past
Hewlett-Packard as the world's largest vendor, reclaiming the top spot
it had captured briefly last year.
The preliminary figures showed a worldwide drop of 10.9 percent in
the second quarter compared with the same period a year ago, with PC
shipments falling to 76 million units.
"We are seeing the PC market reduction directly tied to the shrinking
installed base of PCs, as inexpensive tablets displace the low-end
machines used primarily for consumption in mature and developed
markets," said Mikako Kitagawa, analyst at Gartner.
"In emerging markets, inexpensive tablets have become the first
computing device for many people, who, at best, are deferring the
purchase of a PC. This is also accounting for the collapse of the mini
notebook market."
Gartner's survey showed Lenovo taking a 16.7 percent global market
share with shipments of 12.67 million units, just ahead of HP's 12.4
million and 16.3 percent share. Both firms saw sales declines, but
Lenovo's was limited to 0.6 percent while HP sales fell 4.8 percent.
Dell was the number three vendor, with sales of 8.9 million and a market share of 11.8 percent.
Number four vendor Acer experienced a drop of 35 percent, and
fifth-place Asus showed a 20.5 percent drop as the two Taiwan-based
firms decided to exit the mini-notebook market.
The PC market has been struggling amid a shift to tablets, and got
little help from the new Windows 8 operated system introduced by
Microsoft last year.
"While Windows 8 has been blamed by some as the reason for the PC
market's decline, we believe this is unfounded as it does not explain
the sustained decline in PC shipments, nor does it explain Apple's
market performance," Kitagawa said.
Apple was not among the top five global vendors, but was third in the
US market with a 4.3 percent drop in sales in the past quarter, Gartner
said.
Overall US sales totaled 15 million units in the second quarter, a
1.4 percent decline from a year earlier, and the figure was 8.5 percent
higher than the first quarter.
Kitagawa said the US market showed resilience because of "solid
growth in the professional market," with some replacements of corporate
computers.
In the region including Europe, the Middle East and Africa, PC sales
saw a 16.8 percent year-over-year drop, Gartner said. In Asia, the drop
was 11.5 percent.
A separate survey by research firm IDC showed a similar picture, estimating the decline at 11.4 percent and 75.6 million units.
But IDC said the decline was not as bad as its earlier forecasts.
"We are still looking for some improvement in growth during the second half of the year," said Jay Chou, an IDC analyst.
"While efforts by the PC ecosystem to bring down price points and
embrace touch computing should make PCs more attractive, a lot still
needs to be done in launching attractive products and addressing
competition from devices like tablets."
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