Worldwide PC shipments totalled 83,7-million units in the fourth quarter of 2014, a 1% increase from the fourth quarter of 2013, according to preliminary results by Gartner.
These results indicate a slow, but consistent improvement following more than two years of decline.
“The PC market is quietly stabilising after the installed base reduction driven by users diversifying their device portfolios. 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,” says Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner.
“However, there are regional variations. Mostly, mature regions show an ongoing trend of positive growth, but emerging markets remain weak,” Kitagawa adds.
“The US showed the highest growth in the fourth quarter of 2014. In EMEA, the Western Europe PC market also showed good consumer sales. Emerging markets, on the other hand, still showed weak PC growth. We attribute this weakness to a strong affinity for smartphones and tablets in those markets, while PCs are a low priority. Even low priced notebooks struggle to succeed, because of the different mobile device usage patterns.”
Lenovo held onto its position as the worldwide leader in PC shipments in the fourth quarter of 2014, with 19,4% of the market. Lenovo showed mixed results in the quarter with strong growth in EMEA and the US, but shipments declined in Latin America and Japan.
The share difference between Lenovo and HP narrowed in the fourth quarter of 2014 with HP growing 16% and garnering 18,8% 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 US HP’s growth in EMEA and Asia/Pacific also exceeded the regional average.
Dell continued to maintain the third position and accounted for 12,7% of the market. The fourth quarter 2014 results indicate that Dell’s expansion into the consumer market has been successful, which was the least focused market for the company prior to the leveraged buyout.
In the US, PC shipments totalled 18,1-million units in the fourth quarter of 2014, a 13,1% increase from the fourth quarter of 2013. This is the fastest growth seen in the market in the last four years. HP showed the strongest growth among the top five vendors, as its shipments grew 26,2%, and it accounted for 29,2% of all shipments in the US.
“The fourth quarter of 2014 was the best holiday for PC sales in recent history. The primary driver was mobile PCs including regular notebooks, thin and light notebooks and 2-1s. Low priced notebooks with about a $300 to $200 price
point boosted shipments while thin/light notebooks and two-in-ones (laptops with a detachable or bendable screen) showed strong growth.
“These results supports our assumption that consumer spending is returning to the PC as tablet penetration has reached the majority of the market,” says Kitagawa.
PC shipments in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) totalled 26,5-million units in the fourth quarter of 2014, a 2,8% increase from the same period last year. This marked four quarters of consecutive growth in 2014, after declines throughout 2012 and 2013.
“The slight growth in EMEA was driven by Western Europe’s strong consumer notebook shipments during the holiday season,” says Ranjit Atwal, research director at Gartner. Shipments were boosted by low-end notebooks with Windows 8.1 Bing, which drove sales volumes during the holiday season. “The low prices were enough to attract consumer attention away from Android devices, but had a negative impact on average selling prices and vendor margins.”
Users were increasingly attracted to notebook and two-in-one form factors instead of tablets. “Two-in-one hybrid devices performed particularly well, as users are replacing some older tablets and notebooks with these new devices that combine features from both,” says Isabelle Durand, principal research analyst at Gartner. This category is predicted to show the biggest volume increase in 2015.
The Eastern European PC market ended the year with strong sales of desktop, notebook and premium ultramobiles. The demand was driven by both consumer and business users. On the contrary in Eurasia, the dramatic devaluation of the Russian Rouble in December 2014 sent shock waves through the overall device market, leading to a further decline in unit shipments for all vendors.
The Middle Eastern and African PC markets remained constrained as users continued to spend on smartphones and tablets rather than PCs.
Preliminary results indicate that HP retained the number one position overall in EMEA, with good results for notebooks, two-in-one devices and Windows tablets. Lenovo held the number two spot with its continued strong performance in the consumer segment.
“The withdrawal of Samsung and Sony from this market resulted in increased share for the top two vendors and did not reduce the size of the available market,” says Atwal.
Acer achieved a strong fourth quarter in 2013, but limited growth in the fourth quarter of 2014 by comparison. Nevertheless, Acer achieved good results in Western Europe and continued to perform well in the hybrid segment, gaining share from close rival Asus.
