Worldwide PC Shipments in the Third Quarter of 2013 Declined 8.6 Percent
Global shipments of personal computers (PCs) have hit a five-year low, according to new figures from the research firm Gartner.
Shipments totalled 80.3m units in the three months to September, down 8.6% from a year ago.
PC sales have now fallen for six quarters in a row, hurt by the growing popularity of tablets and smartphones. Gartner said falling prices of tablets had further hurt sales of PCs in emerging markets.
“The third quarter is often referred to as the ‘back-to-school’ quarter for PC sales, and sales this quarter dropped to their lowest volume since 2008,” said Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner in a canned quote.
“Consumers’ shift from PCs to tablets for daily content consumption continued to decrease the installed base of PCs both in mature as well as in emerging markets. A greater availability of inexpensive Android tablets attracted first-time consumers in emerging markets, and as supplementary devices in mature markets.”
Lenovo is still the top dog in this dying sector with 17.6 per cent of the market, growing its sales by 2.8 per cent of the year. Lenovo’s sales slacked off slightly in its home Chinese market but grew strongly in the US to offset this.
Taiwan-based Acer and Asus, the world’s 5th and 6th largest PC makers, meanwhile, suffered a sharp fall in shipments of 22.6 and 22.5 percent on-year in the third quarter as both companies shift their focus away from PCs to other device markets.
