Worldwide shipments of PCs amounted to 71.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2017, down two percent compared to the same quarter in 2016.

For the whole of 2017, shipments amounted to over 262.5 million, a 2.8 percent decline compared to the year before.

Analyst Mikako Kitagawa said:  “There was PC shipment growth in Asia Pacific, Japan and Latin America.  The US market, however, saw a steep decline which offset the generally positive results in other regions.”

In the league table of PC vendors, HP took the number one slot in the fourth quarter of 2017.  Lenovo showed a decline in shipments in North America.

The US figures show that for that fourth quarter, PC shipments fell by eight percent with four out of five manufacturers showing a decline.  People were buying voice enabled speakers and smartphones.

Kitagawa said: “PCs simply could not compete against these gifts items during the holiday season. We did see some consistent growth of gaming and high end PCs.”

In the States, HP (33.7 percent), was followed by Dell (24.3 percent), Apple (13 percent), Lenovo (11.8 percent), and Acer (3.9 percent) with the “others” representing 13.4 percent market share.

The top four vendors worldwide in 2017 represented 64 percent of global shipments – they are HP, Lenovo, Dell, and Apple – with 21 percent, 20.8 percent, 15.2 percent and 7.4 percent respectively.