Published on the 13/01/2016 | Written by Newsdesk

Worldwide PC shipments of 75.7 million units in the fourth quarter of 2015 are 8.3 percent down the same period in 2014 said Gartner…

For the year, 2015 PC shipments totaled 288.7 million units, an 8 percent decline from 2014. Tellingly, this marked the fifth consecutive quarter of shrinking sales and neither the holiday period nor Windows 10 provided any stimulus to a tired market.

Gartner principal analyst Mikako Kitagawa said the failure of holiday sales to boost shipments hints at changes to consumers’ PC purchase behaviour. “All regions registered a decrease in shipments. Currency devaluation issues continued to impact EMEA, Latin America and Japan,” she noted. “Collectively EMEA, Japan and Latin America saw their markets reduced by nearly 10 percent in 2015.”

Gartner’s outlook for PC shipments in 2016 is for a decline of 1 percent compared with 2015, with the potential for a soft recovery in late 2016. Kitagawa said the PC market is still in the middle of structural change which will reduce the PC installed base in the next few years.

In the fourth quarter of 2015, market leader Lenovo registered a worldwide PC shipment decline for the third consecutive quarter. However, Lenovo declined less than the industry average, and it extended its lead in the market. Lenovo accounted for 20.3 percent of worldwide PC shipments in the fourth quarter of 2015 (see Table 1). Lenovo did particularly well in North America to offset shipment declines in EMEA, Latin America and Japan.

Table 1
Preliminary Worldwide PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for 4Q15 (Thousands of Units)

Company	4Q15 Shipments	4Q15 Market Share (%)	4Q14 Shipments	4Q14 Market Share (%)	4Q15-4Q14 Growth (%)
Lenovo	15,384	20.3	16,061	19.4	-4.2
HP	14,206	18.8	15,452	18.7	-8.1
Dell	10,236	13.5	10,783	13.1	-5.1
Asus	6,002	7.9	6,201	7.5	-3.2
Apple	5,675	7.5	5,519	6.7	2.8
Acer Group	5,277	7.0	5,939	7.2	-11.2
Others	18,940	25.0	22,635	27.4	-16.3
Total	75,720	100.0	82,590	100.0	-8.3

The Asia/Pacific PC market reached 26 million units in the fourth quarter of 2015, a 1.5 percent decline from the fourth quarter of 2014. Gartner said buyers did not rush to replace with newer PC models with Windows 10. PC vendors looked for profitability over shipment volume, focusing on segments such as gaming PCs; bundling of desktops with large monitor screens and ultramobile device models.

For the year, worldwide PC shipments declined for the fourth consecutive year, which started in 2012 with the launch of tablets.

Gartner said the results are preliminary, with final statistics ‘available soon’.