PC shipments have crossed the 8.9-crore mark globally in the first quarter of 2012, showing a growth of a 1.9 per cent over shipments (8.7 crore) in the same quarter last year.
“These results have exceed our earlier projections of a 1.2 per cent decline for the quarter,” Gartner has said.
HP tops the table
HP increased its share as the global market leader, with a share of 17.2 per cent of shipments in the first quarter. It was able to restore some of the business it lost as a result of internal issues.
Although PC vendors typically experience low consumer PC sales in the first quarter, Gartner's preliminary results reveal worse-than-normal consumer PC shipment growth.
“The weak consumer PC demand is in part because of intensified competition for consumers' budgets. Device vendors that focus on a limited product line will get only a small portion of the consumer wallet,” Mr Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner, said.
The results were mixed depending on the region. EMEA (Europe, Middle-East and Africa) region performed better than expected with PC shipments growing by 6.7 per cent in the first quarter, while Asia-Pacific performed below expectations. Slow growth in India and China is partly responsible for this, the analyst said. The slowdown of these countries in this quarter provides a cautionary notice to vendors that the future growth for the PC industry cannot heavily depend on the emerging markets despite poor PC penetration in these regions.
Other vendors
Lenovo registered strongest growth among the top five vendors, as its shipments increased by 28.1 per cent.
It showed significant shipment growth in the EMEA market, with over 50 per cent year-on-year growth.
Dell underperformed in most regions compared with a year ago. For the first time in two years, Dell experienced a year-on-year shipment decline in the Asia-Pacific market.
“Dell's relatively low shipments were mainly due to low-end consumer systems, to which Dell gave low priority,” Gartner said.