'It was a wild one' - why last year was the first of PC shipment growth since 2011

The end of Windows 7 support has helped the PC market have its first full year of growth since 2011, according to both Gartner and IDC.

The analysts paint a rosy picture for the market's 2019 performance, saying Windows 10 upgrades are responsible for the consecutive quarterly uptick.

IDC said global shipments of desktops, notebooks, and workstations grew by 2.7 percent to 266.7 million devices.

For Q4 2019 alone, the PC market grew by 4.8 per cent year on year, claims IDC.

Program VP of IDC's Worldwide Mobile Device Trackers, Ryan Reith, said that 2019 had been a "wild" year for PCs.

"The market will still have its challenges ahead, but this year was a clear sign that PC demand is still there despite the continued insurgence of emerging form factors and the demand for mobile computing," he said.

"This past year was a wild one in the PC world, which resulted in impressive market growth that ultimately ended seven consecutive years of market contraction."

Meanwhile, Gartner said global growth was at a more modest 0.6 per cent to 261.2 million devices for the year, and at 2.3 per cent for the last three months of 2019.

In EMEA, not even Intel's CPU supply woes have dragged down results.

"Contrasted against the ongoing weakness in consumer PC demand, business PC demand has led to unit growth in five of the last seven quarters," Gartner senior principal analyst Mikako Kitagawa said.

"The ongoing Intel CPU shortage, which began mid-last year, became a major issue again on PC delivery to enterprise customers by the top three vendors. Without this shortage, shipments would have grown faster than the reported results."

According to IDC, the heavy-hitters benefitted the most, with Lenovo, HP, and Dell consolidating their grip on the market.

Both IDC hand Gartner had Lenovo, followed by HP and Dell as the top three vendors, with Lenovo growing its market share by 6.5 (IDC) and 6.6 (Gartner) per cent.

The combined market share for the top three vendors went up from 63 to 65 per cent year on year.