The PC market is stagnating and this is very clear from the computer sales figures just released by Gartner. Compared to the same period last year PC sales is down by 20.5 percent in Q1 2013. This is the biggest quarterly drop ever registered by Gartners.
According to the report a total of 12.3 million computers were sold in Western Europe was sold during the first quarter of 2013, which can be compared to the 15.48 million units that were sold in Q1 2012. With a total drop of 20.5 percent only two companies managed to improve their sales figures, Lenovo and Apple.
Lenovo managed to increase sales by 7.2 percent from last year and climbed past Dell on the list of the largest computer builders in Western Europe up to third place behind HP and Acer.
Apple barely managed to improve its sales of Mac computers from 964,000 units to 972,000 units and 0.8 percent sales improvement.
| Gartner: PC shipments in Western Europe by vendor, 1Q13 (k units) | |||||
| Vendor | 1Q13 shipments | 1Q13 market share | 1Q12 shipments | 1Q12 market share | Y/Y |
| HP | 2,424 | 19.7% | 3,550 | 22.9% | (31.7%) |
| Acer | 1,436 | 11.7% | 2,272 | 14.7% | (36.8%) |
| Lenovo | 1,430 | 11.6% | 1,333 | 8.6% | 7.2% |
| Dell | 1,214 | 9.9% | 1,423 | 9.2% | (14.7%) |
| Apple | 972 | 7.9% | 964 | 6.2% | 0.8% |
| Others | 4,831 | 39.3% | 5,941 | 38.4% | (18.7%) |
| Total | 12,307 | 100% | 15,483 | 100% | (20.5%) |
*Data includes desktops and notebooks, tablets not included.
The two biggest players did the worst, HP and Acer, which lost 31.7 and 36.8 percent of their sales year-to-year. HP is still the unthreatened leader in Western Europe with 19.7 percent market share, but the same time last year it was at 22.9 percent. Also Acer lost market shares, from 14.7 to 11.7 percent in Q1 2013. Lenovo on the other hand increased its share to 11.6 percent in Western Europe, right behind Acer.
The first quarter of 2013 brought the worst quarterly decline in Western Europe since Gartner started tracking PC shipments in this region.[…] Wide availability of Windows 8-based PCs could not boost consumer PC purchases during the quarter. Although the new Metro-style user interface suits new form factors, users wonder about its suitability for traditional PCs – non-touchscreen desktops and notebooks.” – Meike Escherich, chief analyst at Gartner.
When looking closer at the biggest countries in Western Europe Gartners concludes that France is biggest culprit with 25 percent lower sales in Q1 2013. In Germany it noted a drop of 20 percent and in the UK the number is 15.8 percent.
Gartner believes sales will continue to drop over the rest of the year, but points out that Intel’s launch of Haswell in early June could become an injection for the PC market that may boost sales throughout the year. Not surprisingly tablets and smartphones are pointed out as the biggest reasons for this PC drama.
Source: Gartner via Digitimes
