PC sales finally show signs of stabilising

The worldwide PC market showed signs of bottoming out during the second quarter following eight consecutive quarters of decline, but sales in APAC continued to fall, according to Gartner.

Global PC shipments increased by a marginal 0.1% year on year during the quarter to 75.8 million units, the research firm estimated.

The PC market’s installed base has been in decline due to increasing smartphone and tablet substitution, but the latest sales data suggests that this rebalancing peaked last year, according to Gartner Principal Analyst Mikako Kitagawa.

“[But] while the worldwide PC market stopped two years of declining shipments in the second quarter, there were mixed results, as stabilisation in developed markets was offset by a decline in emerging markets.”

Lenovo remained the top-selling PC vendor during the quarter, increasing its market share to 19.2%. HP was second with a 17.7% share, followed by Dell at 13.3%.

Asia-Pacific PC shipments decreased 9.5% to 24.6 million units over the same period. But even here there are signs of stabilisation, with minimal declines or flat growth in the region’s mature markets and in China.

The growing popularity of ‘phablets’, or smartphones with screen sizes approaching that of a tablet, is challenging the low end of APAC’s notebook PC market, Gartner said.

Image courtesy of Clive Darra under CC