PC shipments decline for 14th quarter on the bounce
Gartner and IDC both report Q1 declines, but IDC offers hope of commercial recovery in 2020
PC shipments have fallen for the 14th consecutive quarter, according to both Gartner and IDC.
Gartner said that shipments fell 1.4 per cent year on year in Q1 to 61.7 million, with IDC reporting the figure as flat, but down slightly, at 60.4 million.
The biggest contributors to the decline were the US and Chinese markets, Gartner claimed.
"The major contributor to the decline came from China, where unit shipments declined 5.7 per cent year over year," said Gartner principal analyst Mikako Kitagawa.
"This was driven by China's business market, where some state-owned and large enterprises postponed new purchases or upgrades, awaiting new policies and officials' reassignments after the session of the National People's Congress in early March."
IDC was however more optimistic, claiming that it expects to see a change in fortunes in 2020, once the impact of the components shortage has levelled off.
"The component shortage that initially impacted portions of 2017 led some vendors to stock up inventory to avoid expected component price hikes, and that led to some concerns of excess stock that would be hard to digest in subsequent quarters," said IDC research manager Jay Chou.
"However, the market is continuing on a resilient path that should see modest commercial momentum through 2020."
IDC said that the EMEA market posted "stable growth" in Q1, driven by a continued demand for premium products.
Both Gartner and IDC have HP at the top of the pile when it comes to shipments (between 12.8 million and 13.7 million), followed by Lenovo and Dell.
The analysts however disagree on fourth place, with Gartner ranking Apple ahead of Acer and IDC having the pair the other way around. Both vendors are however well behind the top three, at around four million shipments in the quarter.
A full table of IDC's figures can be seen below, with shipments in thousands.