How’s this for a surprise: despite the fact that the PC market is continually shrinking, two top PC makers; Lenovo and Dell, actually shipped more PCs in the fourth quarter of 2013 when compared with the fourth quarter of 2012.
According to market research firm Gartner, Lenovo shipped 14,005,093 PCs during the fourth quarter of 2012. During the same time-frame in 2013, that number rose to 14,932,408, a spike of 6.6 percent. Meanwhile, in terms of keeping up with Lenovo’s pace of growth, Dell is close behind. During the final quarter of 2012, Dell shipped 9,205,892 PCs, with that count rising to 9,773,821 during Q4 of 2013, an increase of 6.2 percent. Though Dell clearly lags considerably behind Lenovo in terms of raw shipment numbers, the fact that any PC firm can report growth of any kind is eye-opening in itself. Lenovo’s PC Q4 2013 marketshare stands at 18.1 percent, which is tops worldwide.
Overall though, total PC shipments in the fourth quarter of 2013 fell to 82,633,610 units from 88,727,923 in Q4 of 2012, a decrease of 6.9 percent. HP, Acer and Asus bore the brunt of those losses, suffering decreases in shipments during Q4 2013 of -7.2, -16 and -19 percent, respectively, when compared with how they fared in Q4 2012.
Though the demise of the PC has been declared and predicted for quite some time now, these growth numbers enjoyed by Lenovo and Dell suggest that perhaps the worst is over for the market, here in the states at least. Here’s what Gartner analyst Mikako Kitagawa had to say.
“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.”
It’ll be interesting to see whether Lenovo and Dell can continue to grow in the new year, and whether HP, Acer and Asus can rebound after a rough Q4.
What do you think? Sound off in the comments below.
