PC shipments during Q3 did better than expected, dropping just 1.7 percent instead of the previously estimated 4.1 percent drop, according to a latest report from IDC.
The research firm said that global PC shipments totaled 78.5 million units in the third quarter of 2014. Commercial PC purchases played a key role in many markets and the top three vendors – Lenovo, HP, and Dell, showed solid year-on-year growth. Lenovo shipped 15.7 million units while HP’s PC shipment reached 14.7 million units. Dell took the third spot with 10 million units. Surprisingly, Apple moved to fifth spot with more than 4 million units sale.
“Although shipments did not decline as much as feared, these preliminary results still show that 3Q14 was one of the weaker calendar third quarters on record in terms of sequential growth. The third quarter has historically been driven by back-to-school sales and renewed business purchasing, which were weaker than normal this year. The current growth of lower-priced systems, while encouraging in the short run, brings concern for the long term viability of vendors to adequately remain in the PC space.”
said Jay Chou, Senior Research Analyst, Worldwide PC Trackers.
The report further revealed that emerging markets posted a disappointing performance, however a stronger-than-expected consumer demand was seen in Asia/Pacific.