Upward swing in PC shipment

Even as the growing market of smartphones and tablets are eating into PC sales, a new Gartner report reveals a slow, but consistent improvement in PC sales following more than two years of decline. According to the report, developed markets such as the US and Western Europe are showing an ongoing trend of positive growth in the shipments. The US showed the highest growth in PC consumer sales in the fourth quarter of 2014, followed by Western Europe. Emerging markets, on the other hand, still showed weak growth in PC shipments. The report attributed this weakness to a strong affinity for smartphones and tablets in emerging markets. Even low priced notebooks struggle to succeed because of the different mobile device usage patterns.

The PC market is quietly stabilising after the installed base reduction driven by users diversifying their device portfolios. Installed base PC displacement by tablets peaked in 2013 and the first half of 2014. Now that tablets have mostly penetrated some key markets, consumer spending is slowly shifting back to PCs, finds the report.

According to Gartner, Lenovo continues to be the leader in PC shipments in the fourth quarter of 2014 with 19.4 per cent market share, followed by HP (18.8 per cent) and Dell (12.7 per cent).