Gartner: Apple gains as PC sales fall in Europe
Summary: PC sales across Western Europe have dropped significantly in Q2 2011. Apple is the only PC manufacturer to show growth.
Market researcher Gartner said that Western European sales of PCs declined by nearly one fifth this quarter, while Apple was the only top five vendor to show positive growth.
Acer alone dropped nearly 45 percent, with Asus, Dell and HP struggling to make sales. Apple, however, grew by less than a single percentage point -- still outweighing the other major players in the PC market.
As sister site CNET report, only Apple and Samsung were the only PC manufacturers in the United Kingdom to show growth, albeit in the single figures, out of the top five vendors.
Having said that, dissecting the numbers, the figures appear relatively consistent across most of Europe.
Given the momentum away from traditional PCs towards high-end tablets, such as the iPad, many PCs are shied away from in a tablet-hungry continent.
Gartner did not offer an explanation as to why Apple's growth outshone traditional PC manufacturers.
Apple's growth can be partly attributed to analysis undertaken earlier this month, citing reasons that the iPad is in a 'league of its own' in terms of its groundbreaking ability to remain a design efficient tablet.
As ZDNet's James Kendrick reported earlier this week, iPad competitors "simply cannot reproduce" Apple's approach to iPad marketing.
The figures show that just shy of 879,000 Macs shipped in the last quarter in Western Europe, including Germany, France and the United Kingdom.
Gartner said that netbooks were widely hit by the dip in PC sales. Acer saw the sharpest decline, as a major manufacturer of netbooks, dropping from 3.69 million sales a year ago to 2.05 million this quarter.
PC manufacturers are stuck between a rock and a hard place. They can either carry on producing cheap and stable machines for enterprises -- and roll them out en masse -- or try and compete with the marketing machinery that only Apple seems to have a grip on.
Related content:
- CNET: Apple gains as PC shipments tumble in Europe
- Why consumers won’t buy tablets (unless they’re iPads)
- Five reasons why the PC is not dead?
- Should I drink the Apple Kool-Aid?
- Report: Android steals 20% of tablet market share from iPad
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Talkback
RE: Gartner: Apple gains as PC sales fall in Europe
RE: Gartner: Apple gains as PC sales fall in Europe
RE: Gartner: Apple gains as PC sales fall in Europe
RE: Gartner: Apple gains as PC sales fall in Europe
thx for nothing/hot air?
Are you thanking yourself here?
Clearly a desperate need for MS stores in Europe;-)
With nothing coming out of MS these days it's hardly surprising to see the numbers declining. What is shocking is the magnitude of some of the declines (22%, 44%!!).
These OEMs (like HP) are going to have to start looking beyond MS for ideas. Apologies in advance to Ed.
RE: Gartner: Apple gains as PC sales fall in Europe
RE: Gartner: Apple gains as PC sales fall in Europe
Did you just contradict yourself? As in OS X will never catch up to Windows even though it is superior?
I use both and I see neither being superior to the other.
Perhaps you'd be so good as to point out how OS X is superior to Windows?
RE: Gartner: Apple gains as PC sales fall in Europe
PS. It all can't fit in one post. Character limited. hence the website.
Perhaps you missed where I wrote "I use both..."
There is nothing special about OS X which makes it superior to Windows. At least not that I've observed.
So I ask again: Perhaps you'd be so good as to point out how OS X is superior to Windows?
ye, he can't
as he pointed out, as a character, he's quite limited.
My guess is that he can only post what he's paid to post by Apple.
Here's a few off the top of my head
RE: Gartner: Apple gains as PC sales fall in Europe
Seriously? Pretty Pathetic list.
@ye
RE: Gartner: Apple gains as PC sales fall in Europe
I went back, the only thing more superior with Apple is power of hardware, Windows 7 on the same hardware gives much more joy than Mac OS X with its decade old UI ...
Oh, gag!
"gives much more joy than Mac OS X with its decade old UI ..."
I got a new job, and they gave me a "top notch" new PC with Windows 7 Professional on it - it's pretty, but I can't believe really how bad Windows still is...and/or what passes for specialized, very expensive Windows programs these days.
Every day it seems there's a new gotcha. I keep a list which is now all of one page and halfway down the back. Within the first month we had a virus (seriously, a _virus_, in this day and age, in a $100M company corporate environment?) and the antivirus vendor pointed the IT department to a _freeware program_ off the web to get this off the PCs, which kept getting infected from others in the building.
I have been surprised - I expected better. Windows kinda, sorta looks like MacOS, but in all the details, it's not even close.
Can you please provide us a copy of the list?
I'd be interested in seeing it.
[i]Within the first month we had a virus (seriously, a _virus_, in this day and age, in a $100M company corporate environment?) and the antivirus vendor pointed the IT department to a _freeware program_ off the web to get this off the PCs, which kept getting infected from others in the building.[/i]
Well there's your problem. Your company has chosen an A/V solution that seems less than capable. What was the name of this virus? And why did you get it?
RE: Gartner: Apple gains as PC sales fall in Europe
It's not about the OS.
It's about the economic fundamentals of the business and their respective markets: the high end, premium computer and gadget business, is a high growth, high margin one.
Making low or mid end PCs is a business in obvious decline.
Sony and Samsung for example, as the article pointed out, are catering to the premium customers as well.