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PC sales go OFF A CLIFF to under 300 million a year

Everybody went backwards – some by 20 per cent – during Q2

The PC market had a horror second quarter, according to new data from analyst outfits Gartner and IDC.

Gartner's blaming Windows 10 for the slowdown: the firm reckons buyers are holding on to their cash before the OS drops, in order to buy machines with Microsoft's new baby pre-installed. Others are holding off because the US dollars surge has enfeebled local currencies and pushed up PC prices. Principal analyst Mikako Kitagawa therefore reckons 2015 is a blip and that slow and steady growth will return by 2016.

Let's hope she's right because Gartner's tale of the tape, the table below, looks ugly.

Gartner counts “ultramobile premium” devices as PCs. Rival firm IDC counts two-in-one laptop/tablets as mobile devices, but even then has reportedly done its sums and found 66.1 million PCs shipped in 2015's second quarter, an 11.8 per cent year-on-year drop.

Gartner's Preliminary Worldwide PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for 2Q15 (Thousands of Units)


Company

2Q15 Shipments

2Q15 Market Share (%)

2Q14 Shipments

2Q14 Market Share (%)

2Q15-2Q14 Growth (%)

Lenovo

13,456.9

19.7

14,440.4

19.1

-6.8

HP

11,924.2

17.4

13,174.3

17.4

-9.5

Dell

9,587.9

14.0

10,082.1

13.3

-4.9

Asus

4,652.6

6.8

5,183.0

6.9

-10.2

Acer Group

4,558.0

6.7

5,710.6

7.6

-20.2

Others

24,220.7

35.4

26,978.4

35.7

-10.2

Total

68,400.3

100.0

75,568.8

100.0

-9.5

Things are bad all over the world. Gartner says US sales were off 5.8 per cent, at just over 15 million units. EMEA racked up 18.6 million machines pushed into the channel, down 15.7 per cent, while the Asia-Pacific clocked 24.2 million units moved and a 2.9 per cent dip.

There's the odd spot of sunshine in Gartner's numbers, as Lenovo and Dell can at least point to increased market share. Dell can say it had the lowest rate of retreat. HP can try to make something of the fact this is the first time it has gone backwards, in terms of shipments, in five quarters.

And Lenovo can still chant “We're number one.”

Here's IDC's data, by way of comparison.

Top 5 Vendors, Worldwide PC Shipments, Market Share, and Year-Over-Year Growth for the Second Quarter of 2015 (Preliminary)  (Shipments are in thousands of units)

Vendor

2Q15 Shipments

2Q15 Market Share

2Q14 Shipments

2Q14 Market Share

2Q15/2Q14 Growth

1. Lenovo

13,444

20.3%

14,535

19.4%

-7.5%

2. HP

12,253

18.5%

13,675

18.2%

-10.4%

3. Dell

9,560

14.5%

10,466

14.0%

-8.7%

4. Apple

5,136

7.8%

4,423

5.9%

16.1%

5. Acer Group*

4,334

6.6%

5,932

7.9%

-26.9%

5. ASUS*

4,330

6.5%

4,693

6.3%

-7.7%

Others

17,082

25.8%

21,274

28.4%

-19.7%

Total

66,140

100.0%

74,998

100.0%

-11.8%

Source: IDC Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker, July 9, 2015

IDC's take on things is that Q2, 2014 saw a bump in PC shipments thanks to Windows XP's demise. Throw in the pre-Windows-10 pause and we've got this nasty quarter to contemplate.

The firm also identified one PC-maker doing well, with growth of 16.1 per cent globally. That vendor? Apple, which IDC says "may be benefitting from some of the uncertainty around the launch of Windows 10, along with refreshed products like the 12-inch MacBook and a relative concentration of shipments in the U.S."

Both firms say their numbers are their first guess and they'll polish them up and release final analyses soon. ®

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