Global PC Market Shipments Drop Again in Q1 2018, Dell Sees Strongest Growth: Gartner

As the global PC market experienced its 14th consecutive quarter of decline in the first quarter this year - dating back to the second quarter of 2012 - Dell with 6.5 percent experienced the strongest growth rate, market research firm Gartner said on Thursday.

HP's worldwide PC shipments increased 2.8 percent in the first quarter as compared to the same period last year.

Worldwide PC shipments hit 61.7 million units - a 1.4 percent decline from the first quarter of 2017.

"The major contributor to the decline came from China where unit shipments declined 5.7 percent year over year," said Mikako Kitagawa, Principal Analyst at Gartner.

"This was driven by China's business market, where some state-owned and large enterprises postponed new purchases or upgrades, awaiting new policies and officials' reassignments after the session of the National People's Congress in early March," Kitagawa explained.

The top three vendors - HP, Lenovo and Dell - accounted for 56.9 percent of the global PC shipments - compared with 54.5 percent of shipments in the first quarter of 2017.

PC shipments in Asia/Pacific totalled 21.9 million units in the first quarter of 2018, a 3.9 percent decline from the first quarter of 2017.

"In EMEA, HP Inc recorded double-digit growth in both desktop and mobile PCs. This was contrasted with a small decline in other regions. HP was adversely impacted by declining demand in the US which generally accounts for one-third of its total shipments," Gartner said.

"In the first quarter of 2018, there was some inventory carry-over from the fourth quarter of 2017. At the same time, vendors were cautious in overstocking due to the upcoming release of new models in the second quarter of 2018 with Intel's new eighth-generation core processors," the Gartner analyst noted.

Lenovo achieved 6 percent growth in EMEA and double-digit shipment growth in Latin America. However, in Asia/Pacific (its largest market), PC shipments declined 4 percent.

With double-digit shipment increases in EMEA, North America and Latin America, Dell grew in all regions except Asia/Pacific.