Despite the Windows 8 launch all PC segments show decline in W. Europe during Q2 2013 CONTEXT reports, as clumsy channel marketing and lack of attractively priced touch-based products undermine the potency of Windows 8 as a PC flagship.

“Demand for Windows 8 was not channeled particularly skilfully with mixed press prior to launch, insufficient marketing activity at store level as well as low availability of touch systems,” the analyst remarks.

CONTEXT does mention "some positives" for the period-- clamshell notebooks record a "lesser decline" and a Windows 7/8 upgrade scheme (free Windows 8 license upgrade for customers buying pre-installed Windows 7 Pro) created at least some demand.

The global WLAN market (combining both consumer and enterprise segments) grows by 12.5% Y-o-Y during Q1 2013 IDC reports, making for another positive quarter for the industry.

The enterprise segment shows the strongest growth during the period-- 19.3% Y-o-Y. According to the analyst Q1 2013 is the 13th consecutive quarter with annual enterprise growth reaching over 15%.

The consumer WLAN market is also healthy, with Q1 2013 growth reaching 6.2% Y-o-Y.

"The explosion of mobile devices and the uptake of enterprise mobility applications continue to be top of mind for enterprise IT in terms of driving WLAN infrastructure growth across a wide range of enterprise verticals and use cases," IDC remarks. "While Q1 2013 saw some slowing of growth in wifi infrastructure rollouts for mobile offload applications, the longer term trend of cellular operators and managed service providers leveraging wifi stays intact and will continue to boost additional growth in the coming years."

According to IDC WW 2013 tablet shipments will reach 229.3 million units with 58.7% growth, up from 144.5m for 2012-- beating portable PC shipments for the year, with the PC market showing negative growth for the second consecutive year.

As a result the analyst forecasts tablet shipments will beat the entire PC market (covering portables and desktops) by 2015, since consumers continue to prefer purchasing tablets to deal with tasks such as web access, social media, emails and any number of apps.

"What started as a sign of tough economic times has quickly shifted to a change in the global computing paradigm with mobile being the primary benefactor," IDC remarks. "Tablets surpassing portables in 2013, and total PCs in 2015, marks a significant change in consumer attitudes about compute devices and the applications and ecosystems that power them... for many consumers, a tablet is a simple and elegant solution for core use cases that were previously addressed by the PC."

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.