The decline of the W. European PC market continues Gartner reports-- Q4 2013 sees shipments decline by -4.4% Y-o-Y to 14.7 million units, with drops across all segments and territories.
Mobile and desktop PC shipments for the quarter decline by -6.5% and -0.3% Y-o-Y respectively. Shipments to the professional segment are down by -1.7%, while the consumer market drops by -7%.
"Shipments for traditional PCs (desktops and mobile PCs) in 2013 decreased -14%, but the rate of unit decline is moderate across geographies-— which could indicate that the impact of tablets cannibalizing PC sales in mature markets is fading," the analyst says. "Additionally, large numbers of professional PCs running on Windows XP remained in use, and the corporate market has been increasing its PC replacement-— making up for a weak consumer PC market."
HP remains top W. European PC vendor, followed by HP, Lenovo, Acer and Asus. Gartner describes the race for 5th place as "fierce," with Apple winning through double-digit growth in both desktop/mobile markets and strong consumer market presence.
"Holiday sales in W. Europe were primarily dominated by tablets and mobile devices," Gartner remarks. "However, hybrid devices and lower cost notebooks could spur growth in 2014."
As for performance in separate countries, Q4 2013 single-digit decline continues in the UK with shipments reaching 2.9m units-- a -6.7% Y-o-Y drop. Mobile shipments are down by -10%, desktops remain flat, while consumer and business demand drops by -11.7% and -1.2%. However such declines are an improvement over the double-digits seen during the past few years, and Gartner expects a smaller yet (more) stable UK market for the near future.
France sees a 6th consecutive quarterly decline of -1.7% Y-o-Y-- a figure less steep than the UK and Germany, with the consumer and professional PC markets decreasing by -0.5% and -3.1%. Meanwhile shipments in the German market drop by -Y-o-Y to 3.2m units as Windows 8.1 fails to improve on volumes, even if it might do so on 2014 enterprise shipments.
Go Gartner Says PC Market in W. Europe Declined 4% in Q4 2013
