United States dollar to blame for global PC shipment decline: Gartner

The July launch of Windows 10 had an immediate suppressive impact as many consumers took advantage of the free upgrade. “The focus of the Windows launch in the quarter was to upgrade to Windows 10 on existing PCs, rather than ship on new PCs; the Windows 10 rollout will ramp up in 4Q15 holiday sales”.

Gartner added that it is not all doom and gloom for the PC market; as part of its 2015 personal technology survey, 50 percent of consumers expressed intention to purchase a PC in the next 12 months, with 21 percent looking at a tablet purchase.

Gartner said analysts “see a few signs for future stabilization and growth” in the PC market.

Michael Dell’s prophecy that Dell, HP and Lenovo will snaffle 80 per cent of the PC market within five years has been supported by the latest quarterly data from IDC and Gartner showing the top three pulling away from smaller rivals.

Research firm IDC, however, came up with a different figure, that of a 10.8% decline, which it said was worse than its projection for a 9.2% drop.

Earlier this year, Gartner suggested that the global PC market was expected to experience a 2.4 percent decline from $193 billion in 2014 to $178 billion in 2015.

Kitagawa expected a “soft recovery” for PC sales to begin in the current quarter and a more stable year ahead. EMEA and Japan were two challenging regions for Lenovo with double-digit declines, but they were offset by 22 percent growth in the U.S. Lenovo introduced a variety of hybrid laptops, both detachable and from a wide range of price points. The global market as a whole saw a 7.7 percent decline in shipments, with only Dell at 0.5 percent joining Apple among top vendors with shipment growth.

In its preliminary results, Gartner has identified a strong United States dollar as a reason for a decline in PC shipments, with impacted regions including Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Japan, and Latin America.

IDC says Asia Pacific, excluding Japan, saw volume “close to expectations”, but says the market was softer compared to the previous year due to currency impact and clearing of the channel inventory as a main priority for many countries. This program offers a comprehensive and timely picture of the worldwide PC market, allowing product planning, distribution, marketing and sales organizations to keep abreast of key issues and their future implications around the globe.

The category includes desktop, laptop and notebook computers, but not devices in the booming mobile market.

HP maintained the second position in worldwide PC shipments.

Acer continued in the top 5, but saw shipments decline significantly from a strong third quarter performance a year ago as its largest regions, EMEA and Asia/Pacific, continued to see overall declines.