Gartner reports Q1 2013 W. European PC shipment decline for the 11th consecutive time with a -20.5% Y-o-Y drop on shipments reaching 12.3 million units-- the worst decline since Gartner started tracking shipments in the region.
"Wide availability of Windows 8-based PCs could not boost consumer PC purchases during the quarter," Gartner says. "Although the new Metro-style UI suits new form factors, users wonder about its suitability for traditional PCs."
All PC segments show declines. Mobile PC shipments fall by -24.6% Y-o-Y, while desktops drop by -13.8%. Shipments to the professional segment decline by -17.2%, and the consumer segment is hit even worse by -23.7%.
Both HP and Acer record declines of over -30%, even if HP remains the W. European market leader (with 19.7% market share) despite consumer notebook volumes dropping by half. On the other hand Acer slips to 3rd place in the vendor rankings, with shipments dropping by -36.8% Y-o-Y.
Only two vendors see growth-- Lenovo and Apple. Lenovo remains the fastest growing vendor (7.2% Y-o-Y) in W. Europe, beating Acer to 2nd place with success in both consumer and professional segments. Apple makes it to 5th place (following Dell) with 7.9% of the market.
"The battle for consumer wallet share continues between different devices," Gartner continues. "The PC is the first to fall by the wayside as usage patterns shift toward smartphones and tablets. This ongoing trend will have a profound impact on the size of the installed base of PCs."
In the UK PC shipments total 2.5m units with a -15.8% Y-o-Y decline as smartphones and tablets to dominate PCs. The consumer and professional segments drop by -23.5% and -7.6% respectively, while mobile PC and desktop demand decline by -22% and -5.2%.
HP remains on top (even if it lost -24.1% of PC volume in a single year), Acer shows the worst performance of the quarter (-26.6% Y-o-Y decline) and only Lenovo shows growth (20.8% Y-o-Y growth) through strong professional segment performance.
French Q1 2013 PC shipments drop by -25.3% Y-o-Y to 2.02m units, a 3rd consecutive quarterly decline and the weakest performance of the 3 major W. European countries. "The shift to buying devices other than PCs persisted in France, and businesses continued to extend life cycle of traditional PCs," Gartner remarks, and double-digit declines are expected to continue in Q2 2013.
Germany sees the worst shipment decline since Gartner started tracking the market-- -20% Y-o-Y on shipments reaching 2.6m units. Lenovo leads the market with 17.7% share, while Acer consumer PC shipments fall by -48% Y-o-Y.
For the future the analyst expects further declines throughout 2013, even if it hopes professional segment demand and the release of Intel Haswell processors will boost H2 2013 and 2014 shipments.
