Gartner caught cold by PC shipment rise

ramping up: PC unit shipments increased in Q3

Gartner has been caught off guard after PC shipments rose unexpectedly in the third quarter - although EMEA unit sales continue to drop by double digits.

The analyst had expected global PC shipments to fall by 5.6 per cent in Q3 on an annual comparison.

But according to its preliminary figures, shipments actually rose 0.5 per cent on last year to 80.9 million units. That represents a 18 per cent rise on Q2 - topping the historical seasonal growth between the two quarters.

However, the EMEA theatre continued to perform dismally as shipments fell 10.1 per cent to 26 million units. The professional market continued to be weak in the region for both desktops and mobiles, Gartner said.

Acer was the quarter’s big winner as 23.6 per cent shipment growth allowed it to displace Dell as the world’s number-two outfit behind HP. The Taiwanese firm now commands 15.4 per cent of the market, compared with HP’s 19.9 per cent and Dell’s 12.8 per cent.

Fourth-placed outfit Lenovo also prospered as 15.8 per cent shipment growth allowed it to boost its share from 7.4 to 8.5 per cent.

However, Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner, hinted that unit growth should not necessarily be regarded as the best metric of success for the quarter.

“Ongoing price declines continue to be a major issue in the PC industry,” she said. “PC vendor performance cannot be determined solely by unit market share gains alone as related revenues and margin performance are key to surviving in very competitive market.”

Kitagawa also said the timing of Windows 7 would be favourable for the industry due to the improving economy and an overdue hardware replacement cycle.

“We anticipate renewed interest in hardware upgrades from consumers and small business during the holiday season as a result Windows 7’s release,” she said. “In the corporate market, Windows 7 adoption is not expected to ramp up until late 2010.”