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

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.

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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.