In an industry that is going through troubled times, only Apple, Asus and Lenovo are keeping their heads above the water, according to research firms Gartner and IDC. Preliminary results show a stagnating PC market with worldwide shipments stalling in the second-quarter.
Gartner's figures
show worldwide PC shipments totalled 87.5 million units, while IDC
reveals a similar figure of 86.3 million units --- a decline by 0.1
percent on the year before. Despite high expectations in the Ultrabook space, shipment
figures show a poor rollout across the board and had "little impact on
overall shipment growth," said Gartner principal analyst Mikako Kitagawa.
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| Credit: Gartner |
The exception to the above are Lenovo and ASUS. While ASUS took the lead in growth, Lenovo grew by around 12 percent in
the second-quarter putting it a hair's breadth away from the top-spot currently occupied by market leader, HP. The company suffered a massive 12 percent drop in growth, with Dell falling by more than 11 percent.
HP sold 13 million PCs down by 1.8 million a year ago, while Lenovo sold
12.8 million up from 11.2 million on the same quarter last year ---
showing extremely healthy growth compared to Dell's 9.3 million
shipments which fell from 10.6 million a year ago. ASUS saw massive
growth of 38.6 percent, but still stands behind in fifth place.
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| Credit: IDC |
According to IDC,
the figures are similar, despite the two research firms measuring the
market differently. IDC said the figures fall in line with "projections of a slow second and third quarter before faster growth by year end."
Windows 8 will be coming to the market soon though, and will probably boost overall PC shipments in the fourth-quarter in the run up to the Christmas holiday.