Global PC shipments fell by 8.6 per cent during the third quarter of 2013, marking the sixth consecutive quarter of falls, according to new figures from Gartner.
The news is made worse by the fact the third quarter is often called the “back to school” quarter for US PC sales, with sales historically buoyed by parents in the US upgrading computers at the start of the new school year.
However, in 2013 the “back to school” quarter turned into a blood bath for the PC industry, with sales diving from 87.8 million units in the third quarter of 2012 to 80.2 million in the third quarter of 2013.
The biggest losses were at Acer Group, where sales fell 22.6 per cent from 8.6 million units a year ago to just 6.6 million during the quarter in 2013.
Asus suffered a similar fall, dropping 22.5 per cent, while independent PC makers weren’t spared either, with their sales crunched by 13.3 per cent.
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However, in a rare respite for the industry’s three largest vendors managed to stave off any significant falls during the quarter, and even pick up market share.
Lenovo’s market share grew from 15.7 per cent to 17.6 per cent, with its quarterly shipments growing to 14.1 million units from 13.7 million a year earlier.
Meanwhile, despite small gains in unit numbers, HP and Dell saw their market share jump to 17.1 per cent (from 15.4 a year earlier) and 11.6 per cent (from 10.5), respectively.
The other bright spot was a slight growth rate in the US of 3.5 per cent, marking the second quarter of growth after six consecutive quarters of falls, which contributed to HP, Dell and Lenovo’s strong result.
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“The positive U.S. results could mean that seasonal strength and channel fill for new product launches in 3Q13 finally overcame the structural decline.” Gartner principal analyst Mikako Kitagawa says.
“Even though 3Q13 shipments were compared with artificially weak 2Q13 because of inventory control for the Windows 8 launch at the time, the 3Q13 results imply the U.S. market may have passed the worst declining stage, which started in 2010.”
HP holds 26.9 per cent market share in the US, followed by Dell (21), Apple (13.4), Lenovo (10.5) and Toshiba (7), with others contributing 21.3 per cent of the market.
Overall, the US represents 16.1 million of the 80.2 million computers shipped worldwide.
