Worldwide PC shipments totaled 93.5 million units in the fourth quarter of 2010, a 3.1 percent increase from the fourth quarter of 2009, according to preliminary results by Gartner, Inc. These figures were below Gartner’s earlier forecast of 4.8 percent growth for the fourth quarter of 2010.
“Overall, holiday PC sales were weak in many key regions due to the intensifying competition in consumer spending. Media tablets, such as the iPad, as well as other consumer electronic (CE) devices, such as game consoles, all competed against PCs,” said Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner. “The bright side of the PC market during the fourth quarter of 2010 was a steady growth in the professional market driven by replacement purchases. For all 2010, the results indicate the PC market recovered from the recession, as it returned to double-digit growth, compared to low single-digit growth in 2009. However, the PC market will face challenges going forward with more intensified competition among consumer spending.”
HP maintained the No. 1 position in worldwide PC shipments in the fourth quarter of 2010, but its shipment growth was below the worldwide average (see Table 1). The preliminary results showed that HP’s professional business had solid growth, but it was offset by a weak consumer PC business in the U.S. However, HP did well in the Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) professional and consumer markets. Asia/Pacific continued to be a challenging region for HP.
Table1: Preliminary Worldwide PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for 4Q10 (Units)
Note: Data includes desk-based PCs, mobile PCs, including mini-notebooks but not media tablet such as the iPad. Source: Gartner (January 2011)
Acer faced challenges in the fourth quarter of 2010 due to a slowdown in the overall consumer mobile PC market. The company was impacted by a weakening mini-notebook segment. Due to a lower presence in the professional PC market, Acer could not benefit from the professional PC refresh demand.
Dell benefitted from professional PC refreshes across key regions. Dell’s shipment growth was better than regional averages across most regions. Dell’s weaker presence in the consumer segment meant the company was not affected as much as some other vendors due to disappointing holiday sales. Lenovo marked the strongest year-on-year growth among the top 5 vendors. Lenovo’s strength was derived from the replacement purchases in the professional PC market, as well as its on-going efforts of getting into the consumer market.
In the U.S., PC shipments totaled 19.1 million units in the fourth quarter of 2010, a 6.6 percent decline compared to the fourth quarter of 2009 (see Table 2). This is better than Gartner’s earlier projection of a 10 percent decline for U.S. PC shipments in the fourth quarter of 2010.
“U.S. holiday sales were not fantastic for most PC vendors, but the professional market did show healthy growth during the quarter,” Ms. Kitagawa said. “Media tablets undoubtedly intensified the competition in the consumer market. These devices do not replace primary PCs, but they are viewed as good enough devices for these who want to have a second and third connected device for content consumption usage. Mini-notebook shipments were hit the most by the success of media tablets.”
HP continued to lead the U.S. PC market, accounting for 29.3 percent of PC shipments in the fourth quarter of 2010. Gartner’s preliminary study shows that Toshiba and Apple were the only vendors in the top 5 to increase shipments, as Toshiba’s shipments grew 14.4 percent, while Apple’s shipments increased 23.7 percent.
Table 2: Preliminary United States PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for 4Q10 (Units)
Note: Data includes desk-based PCs, mobile PCs, including mini-notebooks but not media tablet such as the iPad. Source: Gartner (January 2010)
PC shipments in EMEA totaled 32 million in the fourth quarter of 2010, a 6.2 percent increase from the fourth quarter of 2009. The consumer market in Western Europe remained weak throughout the quarter. In a weak economic environment, already restrained consumer wallets shifted away from PCs to other consumer electronic devices including media tablets, gaming machines and e-readers. The professional market seemed to be picking up, but PC pricing remained an issue as increased EURO/Dollar exchange rates limited any price reductions, resulting in limited year end demand uplift.
In Asia/Pacific, PC shipments reached 27.9 million units, a 4.1 percent increase from the fourth quarter of 2009. Fourth quarter PC shipments were primarily affected by the decrease of shipments into the consumer market. Consumer buying has become more discretionary with buyers both adopting a wait and see attitude due to the distraction of media tablets and cautious due to lack of confidence on the recovery of the world economies.
The PC market in Latin America grew 15 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010 as shipments totaled 8.9 million units. Mobile PC shipments increased 17.1 percent in the quarter, and desk-based PC shipments grew approximately 12.6 percent.
PC shipments in Japan grew 3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010, as shipments reached 3.8 million units. The market experienced a late boost from demand of XP preinstalled PCs from dealers/resellers in October.
For the year, worldwide PC shipments totaled 350.9 million units in 2010, a 13.8 percent increase from 2009 (see Table 3). This growth rate was an improvement from 2009 when PC shipments increased 5.5 percent.
Among top 5 PC vendors, Lenovo’s shipment growth well exceeded the worldwide average. Lenovo’s growth was driven by strong professional growth as well as expansion into consumer space outside of China.
Table 3: Preliminary Worldwide PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for 2010 (Units)
Note: Data includes desk-based PCs, mobile PCs, including mini-notebooks but not media tablet such as the iPad. Source: Gartner (January 2011)
These results are preliminary. Final statistics will be available soon to clients of Gartner’s PC Quarterly Statistics Worldwide by Region program. This program offers a comprehensive and timely picture of the worldwide PC market, allowing product planning, distribution, marketing and sales organizations to keep abreast of key issues and their future implications around the globe. Additional research can be found on Gartner’s Computing Hardware section on Gartner’s Web site at http://www.gartner.com/it/products/research/asset_129157_2395.jsp.
Source Gartner, Inc.
MacDailyNews Take: Pull Apple’s Mac numbers out of the U.S. PC market as a whole and what do you get? PC sales as a whole are off 9% while Mac sales are up 24% YOY. Now when will Gartner will recognize the reality that iPad is a personal computer and include those numbers, too? And, what’re the iPhone and iPod touch, if not small-screened iPads and therefore personal computers, too? The line grows exceedingly blurry.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Fred Mertz” and “Jersey_Trader” for the heads up.]
Apple market share in New Zealand over 11%
<http://www.nzherald.co.nz/technology/news/article.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10698850>
absolutely right. if an ipad is a computer, and it sure seems like, and people want to say an ipad is just a big iphone or ipod touch, then they must be computers too.
As well said by monkeyboy himself:
Q: Are tablets pcs?
A: of course they are! Just a different form factor but they’re still pcs
Tablets are PCs internally, of course, but the whole point of a tablet is that it is NOT a PC in terms of the user interface and experience.
Therefore don’t include tablets with PCs, I don’t want Word and Excel on my iPad.
Can’t have the cake and eat it too — either the tablet is revolutionary or it is just a PC.
Add just 3 million iPads to Apple’s US totals and you have the second largest PC market share in the US for Apple.
If Ballmey says tablets are computers, it must be true. Ballmey has forgotten more about computers than the rest of us know.
iPad should be considered in the above Gartner statistics as a PC.
I think they should recognize the iPod touch and the iPhone as “pocket computers” separate from the PC shipment numbers in order to reduce the “blur”. It will also avoid confusion on what differentiates all of the form factors of PC’s today (and what’s expected to come.) Any tablet or phone with the capability to run applications and with a 5″ screen or smaller can be considered a “pocket computer”.
An iPad, and any other tablet larger than 5″, should be considered a PC.
@ rosswell,
The first computer was made of wood and driven by a series of leather belts hooked up to an electric motor.
No keyboard, no RAM, no ROM, no hard drive, no USB port, no floppy, no output display, no punch cards, no electronics whatsoever.
If that room filling monstrosity was a computer, so is an iPad, iPod touch and iPhone.
I see Dull has been knocked off its second place perch.
What happened to the concept of pile ’em high & sell ’em cheap? Isn’t that Android’s prevailing mantra? Cheap, cheap, CHEAP!!!!!
Droid doesn’t.
@rosswell
“… but the whole point of a tablet is that it is NOT a PC in terms of the user interface and experience”
Have you met Dell, HP, Acer, Lenovo … all they want is the Microsoft kludge as usual, however the thought; in their itty-bitty minds, of escaping the yoke of Microsoft for the Google hegemony is also seen as a blessing to them.
These perps haven’t innovated themselves out of their ditches, why would they see the tablet being different in interface and experience terms … they have had enough time, fer’ gods sake. – –
LAS VEGAS — Nov. 13, 2000 — Tonight at COMDEX/Fall 2000, Bill Gates, chairman and chief software architect of Microsoft Corp., unveiled a new direction in PC technology during his keynote address when he demonstrated a working prototype of a Tablet PC: a full-function Microsoftr Windowsr operating system-based PC incorporating the convenient and intuitive aspects of pencil and paper into the PC experience.
http://www.transmetazone.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=499&page=2
Page one is a laugh as well.
PC market share is the last “underdog” spot left for apple these days. This chart of PC market share will be the most fun to watch over the next couple of years as apple approaches no. 1 in sales (even without counting the iPad as a pc)! With 26% growth while the rest is down 9%, this won’t take that long.
The “rest of the market” is stagnant because the rest of the market is Windows. Mac share is growing because Apple has that “rest of the market” to grow into, by replacing aging PCs with Macs. For Apple’s Mac business that’s already hitting record numbers every quarter (along with iPad which should be considered a “PC”), over 90% of the current PC market is an untapped resource. That’s called a very large growth opportunity.
Really, MDN? Did you just say that the iPhone and iPod Touch are just small screened iPads? Kind of supporting the argument that the iPad is a giant iPod Touch, aren’t you? I’m chalking this one up to a tongue in cheek response from you.
Nice to see Macs continuing to grow in sales. If the 4.4M sales someone estimated here yesterday is true Apple are close approaching Toshiba in the worldwide stats. By next end of year quarter Apple could easily be selling 5M+ Macs.
One thing to remember is that Apple make money every Mac. With an ASP of $1300 and margin around 30% every mac returns about $400.
Dell, HP et al., typically sell their PCs in the $500-$1000 range and can only command margins of 10-15%. So they can end up getting as little as $100 per unit. Doesn’t take much end up selling with zero margin if the market dives.
my toaster is a computer
Good luck apple getting a foothold in the pc market. At this rate apple should get to 51% of market share in about 15 years.
As much as I would love to include iPads in with full fledged PCs, consider this:
You really cannot use the iPad without syncing it to a computer. You can, however, use a netbook independent of any other computer. This means that there is a fundamental difference in the nature of iPads and, thus, it seems legitimate to exclude them (this, btw, is the ONLY argument to keep them separate- the idea that they are only “media consumption” devices is, of course, ridiculous).
Just my 2¢ worth…
@ghr
New Zealand For the Win.
Hell yeah I’m a proud New Zealand MacBook owner
@wha
If you count iPods and itouch’s then you have to count androids and bb’s
This next year the numbers for Apple will be even higher, we have just started to turn the corner with new Macs …..
Will Apple be just a niche computer supplier as the iPhone and iPad halo lift the world wide Mac market share to about 10% this or next year?
You all know that the iOS is a stripped down version of the Mac OS X. If the group all the Androids together, what is the market share of OS X and it’s stripped down iOS sibling?
Will Steve Ballmer be at Microsoft long enough to see the collapse of the Microsoft Empire?
THIS IS GOING TO BE A GREAT YEAR FOR APPLE, IT’S iPHONE AND iPAD!
Note:
• 9.7% plus 24% is 12.03% next year.
• 12.03% plus 24% is 14.91% the next year.
• 14.91% plus 24% is 18.49% the next year. (That is almost 1 in every 5)
• 18.49% plus 24% is 22.93% the next year. (That is almost 1 in every 4)
• The next year it is 28.44% (near 1 in every 3) computers by 2015 and that is not accounting for the iPads and iPhones or the accelerated haloed tsunami like growth rate we will really see.
In my view, if the user is able to develop their own software for a device and that device has other software available for it that the user can choose, then it’s a computer.
End of…..
I love my iPhones and I love the iPad, but until you don’t have to dock the iPhones and iPad to a computer to A) back it up, B) upgrade it, C) get the videos, audios, and photos copied off in full quality, and D) supports multiple users, then an iPad IS NOT a “full” computer and shouldn’t be treated as such. In fact, in that way, the iPad is just a big iPod touch.
Now, I’m not necessarily suggesting that the iPad should be changed to work in those ways, but rather those are major differences between the iPad and a “computer”.
Like another poster said, you can’t have it both ways. It’s either revolutionary and different or it’s not.
I just noticed that MacMan stated what was essentially my point. I guess I should have refreshed before I hit the “Submit” button.
Glad to see some agree that an iPad is not a “computer” in the commonly accepted sense of the word.
[As I said, yes it has the guts of a computer, but it is not the same experience, and it is dependent on a “mother ship”, and so counting iPad sales as PC sales is stupid.]
People who are worried that PC sales statistics wrongly don’t include iPad, iPod and so forth, are missing the point. However you slice it Apple products are selling like hotcakes, and when “tablets” becomes its own category, then and only then will you see the 89% domination that Apple enjoys right now. That day is coming soon.