European PC sales through distribution soared last month, but UK revenues continued to tumble as mainland countries returned to growth.

Research house Context's Distributor Panel tracks sales from 58 of the continent's biggest distributors, spread across 14 countries. In November, their total PC revenue stood at £809m, a 1.6 per cent year-on-year fall, but a massive 10.9 per cent spike on the preceding month. Last month's sequential gain was the third in succession.

But the picture is less rosy in this country, where November revenue fell 6.2 per cent on the preceding month. This compares to a 6.2 per cent rise in Germany. Belgium, France, Italy and Spain also enjoyed sequential sales spikes.

Europe's top distributors shifted two million units during the month, a rise of 10.1 per cent on the same period last year. This also represents the highest monthly figure since December 2008.

Notebooks were the top performers, with unit sales up 15.2 per cent year on year. Desktop unit sales have been falling steadily all year, but the rot began to stop in November, with the sequential decline slowing to 0.4 per cent. HP emerged as November's top notebook vendor, followed by Acer, Asus, Toshiba and Samsung.

Context co-founder Jeremy Davies claimed there was plenty of cause for optimism for next year.

"While there is still a way to go to get back to pre-credit crunch sales levels, the indications are that seasonal sales patterns have returned," he said. "It is encouraging to see that total unit sales levels in the first week of December held firm and stayed at the same level as late November. This bodes well for the rest of the month and the beginning of 2010."