Lenovo Overtakes HP As World’s Top PC Vendor

Worldwide PC shipments have taken another hit this year, down 11.4% to 75.6 million compared to the same quarter of 2012, of which 2012 was already a low point on a declining trajectory. Forecasts estimated 75.4 million but we saw 75.6 million which is slightly better than expected. Europe, the Middle East, African (EMEA) and Asia/Pacific were all apparently slightly below expectations but the USA’s PC market was slightly higher and thus made up the difference.

IDC’s report suggests that the reason for this is a PC market struggling with transition to touch based systems with Windows 8 as well as struggling to justify Ultrabook prices to stiff competition from tablets and smatphones.

“With second quarter growth so close to forecast, we are still looking for some improvement in growth during the second half of the year,” said Jay Chou, Senior Analyst, IDC Worldwide PC Tracker. “Slower growth in Europe and China reflect the risks, while the improved U.S. outlook reflects potential improvement. Still, the weakness in emerging markets is a threat to a core long-term growth area. In addition, while efforts by the PC ecosystem to bring down price points and embrace touch computing should make PCs more attractive, a lot still needs to be done in launching attractive products and addressing competition from devices like tablets.”

HP and Dell claimed growth over recent quarters with IDC stating this is due to replacing the Windows XP stock as it comes to the end of its duty cycle. Lenovo was still the biggest company in terms of shipments but a declining market in China, which accounts for 50% of their sales, saw them fall into negative growth of -1.4%.

“The U.S. market is beginning to reflect some of the Windows XP to Windows 7 transition we’ve been expecting in the commercial PC space, as evidenced by the strong growth in the enterprise-focused Dell PC business,” said Bob O’Donnell, Program Vice President, Clients and Displays. “We’re also starting to see more stabilization in shipments, which we think is a reflection of PC lifetimes finally starting to even out after a long period of gradual increase. The end result should be more PC replacements, even if consumers and companies are selective in making replacements and wait until PCs are older before replacing them.”

Image #1 courtesy of Lenovo and Image #2 courtesy of IDC