Worldwide PC shipments totaled 76.6 million units in the first quarter of 2014, a 1.7 percent decline from the first quarter of 2013, according to preliminary results by Gartner. The severity of the decline eased compared with the past seven quarters.
“The end of XP support by Microsoft on April 8 has played a role in the easing decline of PC shipments,” said Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner, in a staement. “All regions indicated a positive effect since the end of XP support stimulated the PC refresh of XP systems. Professional desktops, in particular, showed strength in the quarter. Among key countries, Japan was greatly affected by the end of XP support, registering a 35 percent year-over-year increase in PC shipments. The growth was also boosted by sales tax change. We expect the impact of XP migration worldwide to continue throughout 2014.”
“While the PC market remains weak, it is showing signs of improvement compared to last year. The PC professional market generally improved in regions such as EMEA. The U.S. saw the gradual recovery of PC spending as the impact of tablets faded.” Ms. Kitagawa said.
The PC market continued to be tough for many vendors. Economies of scale matter tremendously in this high-volume, low-profit market, which is forcing some vendors, such as Sony, out of the market. In contrast, all of the top five vendors, except Acer, registered year-over-year shipment growth. The top thee vendors — Lenovo, HP and Dell — have all confirmed the importance of the PC business as part of their overall business strategies.
Lenovo experienced the strongest growth among the top five vendors. Its shipments grew 10.9 percent (see Table 1), and Lenovo extended its position as the worldwide leader. The company’s shipments grew in all regions except Asia/Pacific, where growth in China has been problematic. Overall, the China market again slowed, in part due to the long holiday in the middle of the quarter.
Table 1: Preliminary Worldwide PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for 1Q14 (Units)
The share difference between Dell and HP once again narrowed compared to last quarter. In the first quarter of 2014, HP achieved its fastest shipment growth of the last two years. HP’s shipment growth in EMEA well exceeded the regional average, which improved HP’s overall growth. Dell maintained a strong position in the market. Since the completion of the leverage buyout last year, Dell has been aggressively expanding its PC business throughout the regions. The first quarter of 2014 was the third consecutive quarter of PC shipment growth for Dell, registering its highest growth since the fourth quarter of 2011.
In the U.S. market, PC shipments totaled 14.1 million units in the first quarter of 2014, a 2.1 percent increase from the same period last year (see Table 2). HP maintained the No. 1 position, as it accounted for 25 percent of PC shipments in the U.S. market. Dell and Lenovo experienced the strongest growth among the top five vendors, with growth rates of 13.2 and 16.8 percent.
“In terms of the major structural shift of the PC market, the U.S. market is ahead of other regions,” Ms. Kitagawa said. “The installed base of PCs started declining in 2013, while the worldwide installed base still grew. The U.S. PC market has been highly saturated with devices: 99 percent of households own at least one or more desktops or laptops, and more than half of them own both. While tablet penetration is expected to reach 50 percent in 2014, some consumer spending could return to PCs.”
Table 2: Preliminary U.S. PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for 1Q14 (Units)
The EMEA PC market saw positive growth after eight quarters of decline. Shipments in EMEA totaled 22.9 million units in the first quarter of 2014, a 0.3 percent increase from the same period last year (see Table 3). Improvements were driven by a PC refresh in the professional market from both the XP effect, and a general increase in professional spending.
“The end of support for Windows XP has boosted commercial desktop sales, driven in part by delayed government buying in major Western European countries,” said Isabelle Durand. principal research analyst at Gartner. “The professional PC market looks stronger overall, as business and governments adjust to a more favorable economic environment. We also expect to see the impact of XP migration to continue throughout 2014.”
HP retained the top vendor position in the EMEA market, and its shipments grew 15.3 percent in the first quarter of 2014. Lenovo has now had seven consecutive quarters of strong growth, which helped it cement the No. 2 spot in EMEA with 36 percent growth in the first quarter of 2014. It also saw its presence in the consumer PC market increase. Asus performed well and currently leads the hybrid market.
Table 3: Preliminary EMEA PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for 1Q14 (Units)
In Asia/Pacific, PC shipments reached 24.9 million units in the first quarter of 2014, a 10.8 percent decline from the first quarter of 2013. Pressure on traditional notebooks continued as the installed base transitioned to alternative devices and replaced only on an as-needed basis. New hybrid ultramobiles with lower price points were available, but demand remained slow as buyers evaluated usage scenarios and application availability amid a market with many other options.
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 website at http://www.gartner.com/it/products/research/asset_129157_2395.jsp.
Source: Gartner, Inc.
“Gartner: Apple Mac third in U.S. PC market with 10.8% share in Q114”
This has been a long time coming! I know SJ is smiling up there. Lets keep it growing!
Tells you how much worry it’s giving Samsung/Google if a comment like yours gets two “1-star” ratings that they have to pay people to watch this site’s message boards and down vote everything.
(I gave you a 5)
me too.
It’s not that, it’s that he’s cheering a negative report. As @derss points out, the numbers could be off significantly, but it shows a YoY decline of -3.8% while the rest of the top 4 show increases. In other words, not only did Apple sell less, but the immediate competition sold more as compared to last year.
I’m cheering that Apple has 10% where as in the old dark days we were down to 1%. How is that not a good thing?
Well 2% is more than 1% would you cheer that? What do you do, cheer all the way down to 0%?
The fact is report is showing a 3.8% negative change while the rest of the top 4 show increases in sales of 1.8%, 13.2%, and 16.8%
How is that a good thing?
Count the tablets (read iPads) and Apple is over 20% and in the lead.
Who is chearing what?
That’s great, but that has nothing to do with this report. This report is showing that Macs YoY have lost market share compared to the competition. 11.5% to 10.8%.
It’s nothing to cheer, or chear for that matter.
You should really remind yourself what the Steve Jobs sayed about the trucks and cars. iPad is eating everybody including Apple and it is perfectly fine and inline with the Apple’s business plan. Mac Pro is selling very well and this month you will see that the Apple ASP (average selling price) has gone up in every category (iPhones, Macs, iPads etc)
Again, that’s great, but it has nothing to do with this report or the original comment. Go back to the first comment. “Hooray, a report shows that Macintosh market share is declining!” is essentially what it says.
The report has nothing to do with the iPad, nothing to do with the iPhone, nothing to do with revenue or net income, and nothing to do with Steve Jobs. My comments in this thread have nothing to do with these things either.
Like it or not, market share in the personal computer industry matters as a variable. It’s used as a measurement by developers, accessory vendors, and IT managers.
When that number goes up, there’s more incentive to build for the platform as well as accept the platform in an enterprise. When that number goes down, there’s an increase in ignoring the platform.
Apple could sell a bazillion iPads next quarter, and that would be great for a lot of reasons, but if Macintosh market share goes down to a very low percentage, we’re going to see less development, accessories, and acceptance.
My suspicion is that Jubei didn’t read the article before commenting, thought that 10.8% was an increase, and just didn’t own up to the mistake.
Now, I don’t think this report spells out gloom and doom for Apple, but it’s nothing to cheer about. Apple’s Macintosh growth hasn’t been straight upwards, but long term trending slowly up over the years.
While the Mac Pro will put upward pressure on Apple’s ASP, this current quarter (and the last) exists in the context of a large migration off of Windows XP (See Derek Currie’s comment).
It wouldn’t surprise me if this quarter saw a rather significant drop due to XP migration and anticipation of new products at WWDC. While the WWDC is a yearly occurrence, it seems as if anticipation is much higher for the larger volume units this year.
Gartner was few hundred thousand Macintoshes wrong last time, so this result that shows YoY decline is not necessarily accurate.
My iPad is a computer!
So is yours.
Concept: Consider the timing.
Windows XP, the second most used OS at this time, has just ended all support by Microsoft (apart from anti-malware).
Therefore: A RUSH to buy PCs that ARE supported by Microsoft.
I’m not posting this as an Apple apologist, but this is the situation at this time. The fast a forced migration of Windows users has never previously occurred. The entire Windows using world is all a twitter about it this week. Some will have planned ahead, they being represented in this data. Meanwhile, a massive boatload are way behind schedule and won’t be transitioning until months from now. I know of one major corporation that is waiting until May to transition to Windows 7, which requires all new hardware along with it.
And then there’s the medical industry that is being forced right this very moment to get off their vast installation of Windows XP, again to new hardware that runs Windows 7 and all the new networking medical database software required by the Affordable Care Act (aka ‘Obamacare’ for propagandists and their suckers).
Just pointing out the situation!
Typo alert: “The FASTEST forced migration of Windows users…”
Time for a carbs infusion.
Dear Microsoft:
Thanks so much for your ineptitude…. errr…. I mean, designing the work of art that is Windows 8 (and Windows Vista before it).
Please, keep up the great work to put an end to the Dark Ages of Computing…. for as long as it takes. Can’t wait for Windows 9.
Baloney. Now that dell is private, there is no way to verify the numbers. Neither apple nor Hpq breakout unit numbers by region. Apple used to but I believe they no longer do.
I have a dream. That all the people who say Apple can’t be a growth company, see Apple grow to 40 to 50%. I have a dream. How much would that add to the stock price. I have a dream.
Well maybe 11 to 12%.
But really….room for growth?
Ahhh…. WTF let’s dream.
Apple makes it’s OWN chip, that it uses instead of Intel…..
And it’s BETTER than Intel, and it has a built-in PIXAR GPU.
And they call the computer the AMIGA 5000.
And it uses Eye tracking instead of a mouse.
And it comes with SuperBASIC that translates your code into Objective_c, for you, so you NEVER have to write code in Objective_c,, in the FIRST place.
And they announce, their Quantum computer (Amiga 10,000), that uses quantum tunneling, and fiber optics, INSTEAD of a circuit board, will be READY IN SIX MONTHS.
“And it uses Eye tracking instead of a mouse.”
What a nightmare. It would be “tits and ass” only. That would kill the productivity totally. xD
In these numbers, what do they mean by “PC”? iPad now runs Office, so is it a PC? If so, Apple is clearly number 1 in the USA, and possibly the world.
I don’t know how much “PC” sales really mean anymore, since the phone and tablet market is now larger in unit sales, and soon will be larger in revenue.
And guess who’s positioned for this: Apple. Guess who’s not: Microsoft.
How could Eye tracking, which can ONLY “see” your eye, have anything to do with “other” body parts?