Global PC shipments still in decline

Gartner predicted the first signs of a recovery in worldwide PC sales today, with a new report showing better-than-expected preliminary results for PC shipments in the second quarter of 2009.

The analyst firm said that PC shipments totalled 68.1 million units in the quarter, a five per cent decline from the same period last year, but better than the expected decline of 9.8 per cent.

"Though the market was still in decline, the results can be interpreted as a small sign of a PC market recovery in terms of shipment volumes in some regions, " said Mikako Kitagawa, Gartner principal analyst.

"PC shipments in Asia/Pacific and the US were better than our expectations, but shipments in the Europe, Middle East and Africa [EMEA] region indicated ongoing weakness."

HP led the table of vendors, posting year-on-year growth of 2.8 per cent to leave it with a healthy 18.1 per cent market share. Dell continued to struggle in second place, with negative growth of 17 per cent to leave it with a 15.6 per cent share of the market.

However, Acer pipped Dell to the second spot in EMEA with a market share of 15.1 per cent. Both Dell and Asus experienced unit declines of over 20 per cent year on year.

"There are no signs of any return to spending in the professional market, and in most markets we seem to see further reduced spending," said Gartner principal analyst Rajit Atwal.

"The mobile consumer market supported the Western Europe market only through the increased volume of mini-notebooks, which represented nearly 20 per cent of the overall EMEA mobile PC market."