After two years of decline, the PC market appears to be stabilizing as consumers return to computers after the tablet boom.
“The PC market is quietly stabilizing after the installed base reduction driven by users diversifying their device portfolios,” said Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner. “Installed base PC displacement by tablets peaked in 2013 and the first half of 2014. Now that tablets have mostly penetrated some key markets, consumer spending is slowly shifting back to PCs.”
According to new numbers from Gartner, worldwide PC shipments totaled 83.7 million units in the fourth quarter of 2014, a 1 percent increase from the fourth quarter of 2013.
Lenovo held onto its position as the global leader in PC shipments in the fourth quarter of 2014, with 19.4 percent of the market.
The share difference between Lenovo and HP narrowed in the fourth quarter of 2014 with HP growing 16 percent and garnering 18.8 percent of the market. HP has expressed its commitment to the device market, and it has started to show a positive result with strong growth in the U.S.
In the U.S., PC shipments totaled 18.1 million units in the most recent quarter, a 13.1 percent increase from the same period last year. According to Gartner, this is the fastest growth seen in the market in the last four years.
HP showed the strongest growth among the top 5 vendors, as its shipments grew 26.2 percent, and it accounted for 29.2 percent of all shipments in the U.S.
Filed Under: Devices
