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Gartner: PC Market Still in a Period of Adjustment

According to a new report by Gartner, global shipments of PCs showed a 2.3% increase in the second quarter of 2011 compared to the same period last year. Gartner reported that PC shipments surpassed 85.2 million units. The figures are well below 6.7% growth that the research firm initially projected.

Gartner noted that the PC market is still in a period of adjustment which started a year ago. ”After strong growth in shipments of consumer PCs for four years, driven by strong demand for mini-notebooks and low-priced consumer notebooks, the market is shifting to modest, but steady growth,” Gartner analyst, Mikako Kitagawa, said in a statement. 

“Vendor’s performances have become variable as they have had to deal with significant inventory buildup, changes to their product mix, and the fact that growth has been coming mostly from emerging markets,” Kitagawa said. “They are also invested in developing media tablets, many of which launched in the first half of 2011,” he added.

HP retained its position as the global leader in  PC sales, with 17.5% of worldwide PC shipments in the second quarter. Second place in the worldwide PC market for the quarter belongs to Dell, and Gartner says it is the first time since the final quarter of 2008 that the company has obtained that position. Among the large vendors, Lenovo saw the biggest growth increasing shipments by 22.5%. Accer on the other hand experienced a drop from No. 2 to No. 4 which is a result of the company’s “low-price, high-volume business model, which is no longer effective,” Gartner said.

In the U.S. Apple showed the strongest growth in market share climbing from 5th place to 3rd, overtaking Acer and Toshiba. PC shipments in the U.S. totaled 16.9 million units in the second quarter of 2011, a 5.6% drop from the same period last year.

“Given the hype around media tablets such as the iPad, retailers were very conservative in placing orders for PCs. Instead, they wanted to secure space for media tablets. Some PC vendors had to lower their inventory through promotions, while others slimmed their product lines at retailers,” Ms. Kitagawa said.

Gartner noted that professional PC sector was”the bright spot in the U.S. market,” as both large enterprises and SMBs were at the peak of their refreshment purchase period. The situation was different for the public sector which, according to Gartner, had a slow start in Q2 of 2011, even though this period is usually marked by high PC sales.