PC Shipments in the Third Quarter of 2014 Declined 0.5 Percent: Gartner

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.”

Preliminary Worldwide PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for 3Q14 (Units)

Company	3Q14 Shipments	3Q14 Market Share (%)	3Q13 Shipments	3Q13 Market Share (%)	3Q13-3Q14 Growth (%)
Lenovo	15,703,391	19.8	14,090,273	17.7	11.4
HP	14,214,195	17.9	13,621,160	17.1	4.4
Dell	10,185,964	12.8	9,286,002	11.6	9.7
Acer Group	6,830,009	8.6	6,265,167	7.9	9.0
Asus	5,768,120	7.3	4,936,206	6.2	16.9
Others	26,684,880	33.6	31,595,900	39.6	-15.5
Total	79,386,559	100.0	79,794,707	100.0	-0.5

Note: Data includes desk-based PCs and mobile PCs, including x86 tablets equipped with Windows 8, but excludes Chromebooks and other tablets.

Source: Gartner (October 2014)

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 Some vendors have already scaled back or have withdrawn from the PC business — namely, Sony and Samsung — and Toshiba joined them in 3Q14.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.