- Aug 23, 2011
- 2,291
Research firm Gartner published a report this week highlighting the movements inside the PC industry during the fourth quarter of 2013. The firm said it noticed the worst decline in shipments in PC market history for the whole of 2013, particularly as tablets continue to eat into PC shipments. Still, Gartner expects that — at least in the U.S. — we’ve hit the bottom.
Total sales around the globe came in at 82.6 million units for the quarter, down 6.9 percent from the same quarter in 2012. That marked the seventh consecutive quarter that shipments declined, Gartner said. In the U.S., shipments came in at 15.8 million units, 7.5 percent down from the same quarter in 2012. Meanwhile, for the whole year, PC shipments were down 10 percent from 2012 at 315.9 million units, the worst year in PC shipment history since 2009, where levels were about the same, Gartner said.
“Although PC shipments continued to decline in the worldwide market in the fourth quarter, we increasingly believe markets, such as the U.S., have bottomed out as the adjustment to the installed base slows,” said Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner. “Strong growth in tablets continued to negatively impact PC growth in emerging markets.” Kitagawa said that the situation is different in emerging markets, where most consumers have their first foray into the internet on a smartphone, and a first computing experience on a tablet.
HP is still the top seller of PCs in the U.S. with a 26.5 percent market share, followed by Dell, Apple, Lenovo and Toshiba. Globally, Lenovo is the top seller with a 16.9 percent market share, followed by HP, Dell, Acer and Asus.
I still prefer a laptop to a tablet PC. A laptop, when compared to a tablet still has the best value for money. It can do a lot of tasks a tablet in the same price range can't do.