Both said that 58.5 million PCs shipped in the first quarter and down globally year-over-year. So far, 2019 looks like more of the same sort of pants performance which has blighted the PC market for years.
After six years of quarterly PC shipment declines, 2018 brought a positive second quarter, a flat third quarter… and then a negative fourth quarter
Of course, in this case, some of that is down to Intel’s CPU shortages, but the reality is that people don’t need to buy PCs as often. Models are fast enough and reliable enough, and most power can be dealt with on the network.
Gartner estimates that worldwide PC shipments fell 4.6 percent to 58.5 million units in first quarter 2019. The top six vendors were Lenovo, HP, Dell, Apple, Asus, and Acer.
Gartner found that in the top six, only the top three saw gains in PC shipments, but these were smaller than their competitors’ losses. The rest of the market was down 20.9 percent.
Lenovo and HP are neck and neck. HP has been on an upward trend, and Lenovo is gaining share. Dell’s growth has slowed, though it remains within reach of the two leaders.
Gartner principal analyst Mikako Kitagawa said in a statement: “We saw the start of a rebound in PC shipments in mid-2018, but the anticipation of a disruption by CPU shortages impacted all PC markets as vendors allocated to the higher-margin business and Chromebook segment.
“While the consumer market remained weak, the mix of product availability may have also hindered demand. In contrast, Chromebook shipments increased by double digits compared with the first quarter of 2018, despite the shortage of entry-level CPUs. Including Chromebook shipments, the total worldwide PC market decline would have been 3.5 per cent in the first quarter of 2019.”
IDC estimates worldwide PC shipments fell 3.0 percent to 58.5 million units in first quarter 2019. The top five vendors in IDC’s results were HP, Lenovo, Dell, Apple, and Acer.
IDC places HP first and Lenovo second, but notes that HP shipped fewer units. That means only Lenovo and Dell saw gains, according to IDC. The remaining top companies were down, as was the rest of the market by 10.4 percent .
IDC research manager Jitesh Ubrani said: Desktop PCs were surprisingly resilient as the commercial segment helped drive a refresh during the quarter,”. “Capitalizing on this refresh cycle, the top vendors — HP, Lenovo, and Dell — each increased their year-over-year volume and captured additional share in the desktop PC market.”