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IDC agrees: PC shipments better-than-expected in Q3

Topic: Hardware

IDC agrees: PC shipments better-than-expected in Q3

Summary: There was also a shuffle on the leaderboard with Apple moving up into the top five vendors worldwide.

Rachel King
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TOPICS: Hardware, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, PCs, Tech Industry
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PC doomsday purveyors are going to have a rougher time of it as recent figures point toward a long-awaited (albeit only slight) upward swing.

The death of the PC has been exaggerated: Get ready for the era of ubiquitous computing

The death of the PC has been exaggerated: Get ready for the era of ubiquitous computing

The death of the PC has been exaggerated: Get ready for the era of ubiquitous computing

Concurring with sentiments emitted from Gartner's report on Wednesday, IDC followed up with by finding the PC industry churned out better-than-expected results during the third quarter.

Analysts tracked 78.5 million units shipped worldwide over the three-month period, representing a year-on-year decline of only -1.7 percent versus the projected -4.1 percent dip.

Sure, still a decline, but silver linings are silver linings.

There was also a shuffle on the leaderboard with Apple pushing out Asus for the number five spot on the top vendor list. IDC analysts suggested Apple's recent push was helped by "recent price cuts and improved demand in mature markets."

Lenovo and soon-to-be-divided Hewlett-Packard continue to lead at first and second, respectively, followed by Dell and Acer.

No one is saying the PC industry is booming or out of the woods yet.

Reflecting on weaker results for back-to-school sales and renewed business purchasing, IDC senior research analyst Jay Chou remarked in the report, "The current growth of lower-priced systems, while encouraging in the short run, brings concern for the long term viability of vendors to adequately remain in the PC space."

Still, analysts did hint at more room for optimism in North America and Europe while lauding Lenovo, HP and Dell for "all showing solid year-on-year growth."

Stateside, roughly 17.3 million PCs were shipped, representing a 4.3 uptick annually and 2.6 percent sequentially.

Rajani Singh, an IDC senior research analyst covering personal computing, predicted a "healthy holiday season" in the U.S. while still warning that "low demand for large commercial refreshes, combined with competition from 2-in-1 systems, may limit the growth potential."

Emerging markets were deemed "disappointing," but analysts highlighted stronger-than-expected consumer demand in Asia/Pacific.

Screen Shot 2014-10-09 at 12.04.25 PM
Shipments are in thousands of units. (Image: IDC)

Topics: Hardware, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, PCs, Tech Industry

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8 comments
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  • Mobile devices = presbyopia express

    If you wanna lose the ability to see things closely b4 turning 40 then keep using your phones and tablets intensively.
    LBiege
    Reply Vote

  • I'd be interested to see the whole picture

    You know, how many people assembled their own PC's. It can't be an inconsequential number.
    blarelli
    Reply Vote

    • It would also be very hard to count

      Home builders often have parts that could be assembled into a dozen workable computers, and they buy parts to make old computers like new. How any of that could be translated neatly into 'computers sold' I'm not sure.
      luke mayson
      Reply Vote

    • Hmmm...

      Assuming home builders buy off the shelf Windows and Microsoft publishes that sales figure, would that be a way of guessing the number?
      rfoto
      Reply Vote

      • no.

        Home builders use a variety of different ways to license their OSes, even if we only count the legal ways. And they often have more than one OS per PC.

        The best guesstimate would probably be to go by number of non-server, non-phone x86 CPUs sold. But then that would mean Atom tablets count as PCs (which is probably the right way to count them).
        Sacr
        Reply Vote

  • Apple v. Microsoft

    Apple seems to be doing better increasing desktop market share than Microsoft is doing increasing Windows Phone market share . . . .
    FDanconia
    Reply Vote

    • The one thing you can count on is that, no matter what, Apple will not gain

      very much in market share in the PC market.

      Meanwhile, Microsoft is still the "new guy on the block" when it comes to smartphones, and can only grow in sales and market share. Apple has been stuck with the same market share for decades.
      adornoe@...
      Reply 1 Vote

  • Just wait until Windows 10

    It's no co-incidence that most of the predictions of the death of the PC coincided with the release of Windows 8. The recent uptick and probably be contributed to the phasing out of XP. Windows 10 should give those who prefer the keyboard and mouse a reason to ugprade. I will be surprised if there isn't a significant surge in PC sales after Windows 10 is released.
    bchristian1985
    Reply Vote