Two reports have painted a bleak picture for the desktop and laptop industry, with the first three months of the year seeing unprecedented declines in sales.
International Data Corp reported shipments of PCs in the first-quarter fell 14 per cent on the same time last year, while Gartner reported a decline of 11 per cent.
Gartner said 79.2 million PCs were shipped in the first three months of the year, the first time the figure has fallen below 80 million since the second quarter of 2009 and the fourth consecutive quarter sales have declined.
It said the steepest decline was in the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region.
Gartner principal analyst Mikako Kitagawa said the decline was due to a migration of consumers to tablets and smartphones.
“Unlike the consumer PC segment, the professional PC market, which accounts for about half of overall PC shipments, has seen growth, driven by continuing PC refreshes,” she said. “Despite the fact that some regions already passed the peak of PC refresh, overall professional PC demand continued to grow.”
The report said EMEA had suffered its biggest decline in PC sales since the firm began publishing quarterly market share statistics, after a “fundamental shift in the role of PCs in the consumer market”, according to Gartner principal research analyst Isabelle Durand.
