Gartner: PC sales fell 0.5% in Q3 2014

Market research firm Gartner claims sales of PCs dropped 0.5 percent year-over-year to 79.4 million units in Q3 2014. A closeup of regional sales shows sales in the US rose 4.2 percent year-over-year while the EMEA region recorded a 9.6 percent growth. Asia on the other hand saw a decline of 5.3 percent. The report claims the transition from PCs to tablet is fading as tablet penetration has peaked with mainstream consumers.

In terms of global marketshare, Lenovo reigns supreme with a share of 19.8 percent in Q3 2014, followed by HP at 17.9 percent and Dell at 12.8 percent. Acer ranks fourth with 8.6 percent and ASUS takes the fifth place with 7.3 percent. Full details can be read over here.

Worldwide PC shipments reached 79.4 million units in the third quarter of 2014, a 0.5 percent decline from the third quarter of last year, according to preliminary results by Gartner, Inc.

“Growth in the mature markets was offset by a decline in shipments in emerging markets, similar to what was seen in the second quarter of 2014,” said Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner. “Positive results in Western Europe and North America can be a sign of gradual recovery for the PC industry.

“Consumers’ attention is slowly going back to PC purchases as tablet adoption peaked with mainstream consumers. The transition from PCs to tablets has faded as tablet penetration has reached the 40-50 percent range.” In contrast, weakness in the emerging market reflects the saturation in selected consumer segments where they can afford PCs. In the meantime, consumers who don’t have PCs will likely buy low priced tablet. This is a one of the major reasons for the slow growth in PC shipments in the emerging market.”

For the first time, the sum of the top five vendors' share reached two-thirds of the worldwide PC shipments. All top 5 vendors showed stronger growth compared to the industry average. Scale is one important success criteria for vendors to survive in the PC market. Some vendors have already scaled back or have withdrawn from the PC business — namely, Sony and Samsung — and Toshiba joined them in 3Q14.

Lenovo extended its position as the worldwide leader in PC shipments, as it accounted for 19.8 percent of the market in the third quarter of 2014 (see Table 1). Lenovo did especially well in EMEA as it achieved more than 40 percent growth over the third quarter last year. It also had year-over-year growth in Asia/Pacific, despite the region showing a decline overall.

While its overall growth rate slightly declined in PC shipments, HP was able to post single-digit growth to maintain the No. 2 position worldwide. HP was the No. 1 vendor in EMEA and the U.S. While HP announced its intention to split the company into two companies, the impact to the PC business operation should not be significant. Dell had another strong quarter, and the results indicate that Dell’s commitment and investment into the PC market has been consistent since it went private.