Lenovo becomes largest PC shipper in Q2 2013, PC market falls 11 percent

Reports about the PC market in Q2 2013 by IDC and Gartner show that shipments of PCs have fallen in Q2 2013 by around 11 percent year-over-year, marking the fifth consecutive quarter of declining shipments.

Some PC brands were hit much harder than others though, but somehow Chinese PC maker Lenovo managed to hold on to its sales and come out on top as world's largest PC shipper. IDC predicts Lenovo's PC shipments fell 1.4 percent year-over-year, while Gartner estimates it was only 0.6 percent. HP now ranks second as the firm saw its shipments decline by 5-7 percent, while Dell experienced a decline of around 4 percent. A few years ago Acer was still the rising star and dreamed of becoming world's largest PC shipper, but last quarter the company saw its PC shipments collapse by roughly a third, while ASUS didn't do well either as it saw its shipments nosedive by over 20 percent.

Gartner and IDC seem to agree that people are choosing to pick up cheap tablets over cheap laptops and other PCs, which is accounting for some of the decline especially in emerging markets. In the previous quarter, IDC liked to lay some of the blame on Windows 8, however this time around both have refrained from slamming Microsoft's OS, with Gartner's Mikako Kitagawa especially mentioning that this assumption is "unfounded".

While Windows 8 has been blamed by some as the reason for the PC market’s decline, we believe this is unfounded as it does not explain the sustained decline in PC shipments, nor does it explain Apple’s market performance.

H/T: Neowin