People knew for quite a while that Microsoft was planning to end support for Windows XP on April 8 of this year. Now that Windows XP is no longer boosted by Redmond, it appears that a notable amount of people waited until the last minute to upgrade to a brand new system powered by an operating system that is still supported.
PCMag reports that, according to market research firm Canalys, the decline of the global notebook PC market has “slowed” to 7 percent. While that’s not exactly glowing news, a slower death march isn’t the worst news that the PC market has heard in the last few years either. Growth was primarily concentrated in Western Europe, while the North American market stood pat.
“Commercial shipments the world over have been lifted by the end of life of Windows XP, a trend that also influenced desktops, helping shipments to remain flat year-on-year,” Canalys said.
Currently, Lenovo is the biggest fish of the pond, Canalys’ stats indicate. Their share of the worldwide PC market spiked from 10 percent during the first quarter of 2013, to 12 percent in the first quarter of this year. Lenovo occupies the biggest slice of the laptop pie, while assuming second place when it comes to shipping desktop PCs.
HP also improved its position, jumping up to third place in the global PC market by shipping 11 percent of PCs worldwide during Q1 of 2014. Most of that growth occurred on the notebook side of HP’s computer business.
“After considerable work on its industrial design across its portfolio, [HP’s] notebook shipments grew 7 percent year-on-year—the second quarter of growth since Q1 2012. It continues to lead the U.S. notebook market, as well as the major markets in Western Europe, apart from Germany,” Canalys states.
