Worldwide PC shipments totaled 71.1 million units in the first quarter of 2008, a 12.3 percent increase from the first quarter of 2007, according to preliminary results by Gartner, Inc.
“The U.S. results were in line with our expectation, indicating that the PC market was modestly affected by the U.S. recession, although there was no fundamental change in market conditions,” said Mika Kitagawa, principal analyst for Gartner’s Client Computing Markets group. “The Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) and Asia/Pacific regions showed stronger than expected results, fueled by solid mobile PC growth across most countries. Latin America continues its rapid growth due to consumer spending.”
Hewlett-Packard extended its lead during the first quarter of 2008, as its worldwide market share increased to 18.3 percent, compared to a year ago. However, its regional performance was mixed. HP registered solid growth in EMEA and other regions while it struggled to increase shipment volumes in the U.S. market.
Dell registered its second consecutive quarter of double-digit growth in the worldwide market. Almost all regions grew higher than the regional average. Rapid retail expansion, as well as channel business, contributed to the solid shipment growth.
Note: Data includes desk-based PCs, mobile PCs and X86 servers. Acer data includes Gateway’s consumer shipments and Packard Bell shipments.
Source: Gartner (April 2008)
U.S. PC shipments reached 15.2 million units in the first quarter of 2008, a 3 percent increase from the same period last year. These results were on target with Gartner’s latest forecast. “The preliminary results show that the price pressure during the quarter was greater than we expected,” Ms. Kitagawa said. “Indications are that the market felt the squeeze in the second half of the quarter. The U.S. market is softening and this can potentially hasten downward price pressure and further intensify competition for the rest of 2008.”
“Home mobile PC growth continued to drive U.S. PC growth,” Ms. Kitagawa said. “Despite declining consumer confidence, U.S. consumers did not put off mobile PC purchases as evidenced by solid mobile growth during the first quarter. This growth was stimulated in part by aggressive price cuts.”
Dell extended its lead in the U.S. PC market with its market share reaching 31.4 percent. Dell’s channel program, Partner Direct, launched in December 2007, started yielding dividends, as well as its retail expansion. HP registered its lowest year-on-year growth since the Compaq merger in 2003.
Acer is trying to shift its target market from low-end to mid-range systems, and the shift has adversely affected Acer’s shipment volume. Gartner’s early results indicate that Apple experienced the strongest growth rate among the top 5 vendors in the U.S. market. Apple enjoyed strong retail sales, and there were indications that Apple showed decent growth in the professional market as well.
Note: Data includes desk-based PCs, mobile PCs and X86 servers. Acer data includes Gateway’s consumer shipments and Packard Bell shipments.
Source: Gartner (April 2008)
PC shipments in EMEA totaled 24.8 million units, a 14.9 percent increase from the first quarter of 2007. The strength of unit growth is linked in part to average selling price declines on mobile PCs. The increased competition in the consumer market from vendors such as Dell and Lenovo forced vendors to compete at the lower price points.
In Asia/Pacific, PC shipments reached 19.1 million units in the first quarter of 2008, a 19 percent increase from the same period last year. Although there was caution in the region due to the slowdown in the U.S. economy, it did not generate an adverse pull back effect on PC spending in the first quarter. However, rising regional inflation is a concern for the second quarter if governments cannot bring some price stability.
Latin America PC shipments totaled 6.3 million units, a 19.1 percent increase from the same period last year. The consumer market performed strongly despite seasonality factors such as summer vacations in many South American countries and February’s carnival holiday season in Brazil. Strong inroads are being made by local branded vendors who are capitalizing from the booming retail markets. Retailers are providing PC financing in an unprecedented way.
The PC shipments in Japan grew 0.6 percent in the first quarter of 2008, as shipments reached 4.1 million units. The professional PC market grew 3.2 percent while the private market declined 3 percent. One of the growth inhibitors in the private market was the large volume of spring models shipped in late December 2007 from two major vendors. If those models had shipped in the first quarter of 2008, private market growth would have indicated positive growth of low single-digit.
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 Note: Gartner’s Apple Mac estimates are prior to Apple’s financial earnings report due next Wed., April 23, 2008.
this is the bad line for apples premium brand
The U.S. market is softening and this can potentially hasten downward price pressure and further intensify competition for the rest of 2008
in a time of financial crisis, people may decide that they will go for an entry level pc rather than an entry level mac at a not so entry level price
Macs it would appear continue only to sell in numbers in the states, which is worrying for Apple if the market in the US is softening
Sad how in the world wide chart, Apple doesn’t even figure in. I guess it’s thrown in the “others” category.
apple went from 2% to 6 % in a few years that is a triple!!!!!
get a grip
FUD sters!
For Apple to make any gains is a victory period. Remember Apple is up against a MONOPOLY that the government has allowed to continue. For Apple to survive and make some ground is simply remarkable.
“Sad how in the world wide chart, Apple doesn’t even figure in. I guess it’s thrown in the ‘others’ category.”
They’re only showing the top 5 in both categories. If we assume that Apple sold another 1 million Macs worldwide, that would be 2 million Macs sold by Apple in 1Q08–still below Toshiba’s 3 million.
Up 32% 07Q1 vs. 08Q1. That is remarkable growth! I wish they’d throw their hat into the UMPC market with a large iPhone-like tablet. Then we’d see some serious growth.
For pity’s sake guys! Stop the excuses and dissapointment. Are you seeing the same figures that I am?
Just take another look at those US figures.
Best PC maker growth: Dell : 15.7%
Total market growth – – – – – – : 3.0%
Best growth – – – – – -: Apple : 32.5%
That’s double Dell’s growth and 10 times the growth of the whole US computer market.
Gartner reckons that the US market grew by just 3%. That’s 445,000 units…….. and according to their figures OVER HALF of those were Macs. 248,000
@Plot
Thanks for putting those numbers in perspective. I am amazed at how easily people misinterpret statistics.
I have been watching Apple since the beginning. This is another exciting time. I see some great things happening for them.
I recommend computers to a lot of people. I see more and more people accepting the idea of just considering purchasing a Mac. This year alone I have converted four people.
Personally I have lots of computers in my house. But the Mac is the most fun to use.
One more thing…
Does anyone here know anyone who owns an Acer? I only know one person and he is thinking of buying a Mac.
Are they putting Gateway in with Acer?
Is there a way to discover how many ‘consumer’ computers were sold in the same time frame, as opposed to total machines? I believe that a great many computers which run Windows are sold as point of purpose machines by large companies. I’m interested in how many of the totals are indicating people who buy their own computers.
What this story has told us is that half the story is not the full story. We need the link and the piece that analyses the rest of the world or at the very least the Asia/pacific area…that’s where the powerhouse economies are and that’s where many computers are being sold. Come on MDN see if you can refocus away from the United States.
These are the links we need:
http://www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?
id=327756&ref=g_sitelink
http://www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?id=327771&ref=g_sitelink
http://www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?id=329181&ref=g_sitelink
Come on MDN give us the full story not just the story from one part of the world.
What I want to know is why they include X86 servers in with desktop and mobile PCs? Why include servers with PCs in the first place?
And as been noted many times before, unless they break out work and personal sales, none of these figures really matters much as to what people buy when they’re paying for it themselves.
Macs are preferred by Milfs.
Apple really should improve their marketing outside the US. There are many Mac fans outside US but Apple’s marketing in these countries suck big time.
Maybe one or two newspaper ads for new products once in a long while. TV spot? Forget it. You literally have to go to a Mac vendor’s store to even stumble on an Apple ad.
The main (if not the only) reason they’re maintaining their share is because of current users’ loyalty and some word of mouth marketing. If they’d only put a similar amount of effort internationally as they do in the US, they’d definitely grow even faster.
Don’t even get me talking about digital content (iTunes Store).
Pathetic really.
It’s interesting that the US market was flat except for Dell and Apple. Dell probably seeing benefit of even more price slashing to gain share. Apple from their amazing products.
Worldwide sales did not seem to be affected so much from the US recession. All the major players saw 20% growth. For Apple to get to #5 worldwide they would need to sell another million units. Assuming Apple sell 2M units that would give them a 2.8% market share worldwide.
I don’t think Apple are so concerned about market share. They want mind share and high margins. This quarter will tell us whether Dell’s profit is much better than Apple’s even though they sell 5 times more units.
“Macs are preferred by Milfs.”
It’s true – my MILF-friend loves to stroke my MBP, and adores the pinkness of the iP Shuffle I gave her.
Re market share, no one expects BMW to dominate the auto market. BMW sells desirable premium products and maintains a steady uptick on sales and is hugely profitable.
Seems to me that these days, Apple is in a similar sweet spot. But I agree international sales do look a little invisible, a few markets excepted.
Still, iPod & Co help mindshare regardless.
JMTPW.
The numbers for Dell are very interesting. Increase in units sold. Increase in market share. Couple that with declining profits and slashing thousands of jobs to cut costs and increase profits and the message is clear. Sell, sell, sell. This is an unhealthy company. Big, yes. Healthy, no.
The US is in a recession or headed in to one. Dell and HP have a very good world wide position. Consumer spending is in the upswing with in the emerging economies, Apple has little to no presence there. So don’t get you hopes to high. Besides, what do you all care. It’s not like you guys are selling them. Me, personally, I hope that the Mac never becomes the main stream platform, I like things just the way they are. Since we chose Apple Macintosh, we have the superior choice, unlike the rest of the computing masses.
Remember, $4.00 for a gallon of gas, sure, it will affect even Apple.
“Remember, $4.00 for a gallon of gas, sure, it will affect even Apple.”
$4.00 per gallon is nothing. Where I am (somewhere in Canada) gas is at $1.269 per liter. Four liters to a gallon gives $5.076 per gallon here. So try not to complain, alright? Gas in the states is CHEAP.
–mAc
Last I looked, in Holland you pay about 1.50 euros per liter of gas. That amounts to 2.4 dollars per liter, 9 dollars per gallon (courtesy of the converter widget) in an economy that’s not crashing nearly as much as the us economy. So, I don’t think it matters much unless you make a fuss of it.
in the EU we do pay more than twice for fuel, but our vehicles are often more than twice as economical.
If my memory serves me well, Apple usually sells about 40% of its Macs in the U.S. and about 60% abroad.
If it’s the same in this quarter, that means:
40% = 1,000,000
60% = 1,500,000
That’s two and a half million which is “insanely great”.
@gavron
unfortunately it’s vice versa. but it seems to me gartner and idc don’t count what apple refers to as “retail macintosh unit sales”, which could be around 400.000 extra units. that would make 2.2 million for the quater (fingers crossed).
ralph from berlin,
thanks for that.
Perhaps it’s my ageing memory (I’m 60), or wishful thinking that ‘reversed’ that statistic.
Schade!
I also live in Berlin. Do you know of a Mac users club here?
My e-mail:-
charko@gmx.net.