Worldwide PC shipments totaled 83.7 million units in the fourth quarter of 2014, a 1 percent increase from the fourth quarter of 2013, according to preliminary results by Gartner, Inc. These results indicate a slow, but consistent improvement following more than two years of decline.
"The PC market is quietly stabilizing after the installed base reduction driven by users diversifying their device portfolios. Installed base PC displacement by tablets peaked in 2013 and the first half of 2014. Now that tablets have mostly penetrated some key markets, consumer spending is slowly shifting back to PCs," said Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner.
Lenovo held onto its position as the worldwide leader in PC shipments in the fourth quarter of 2014, with 19.4 percent of the market (see Table 1). Lenovo showed mixed results in the quarter with strong growth in EMEA and the U.S., but shipments declined in Latin America and Japan. The share difference between Lenovo and HP narrowed in the fourth quarter of 2014 with HP growing 16 percent and garnering 18.8 percent of the market. HP has expressed its commitment to the device market, and it has started to show a positive result with strong growth in the U.S. HP’s growth in EMEA and Asia/Pacific also exceeded the regional average.