Early assessments are coming in from the leading PC analysts, IDC and Gartner, and both agree that the PC market saw a sharper decline than the previous two quarters, though slightly better than forecast. An early indication of this had already come from Intel, who issued a warning on 12 March.
IDC’s preliminary estimates saw shipments fall 6.7% YoY to 68.5M, which compares with drops of 2.4% in Q4 2014, and 1.7% in both Q2 and Q3. The company flagged inventory build ups of Bing-promoted notebooks, the end of Windows XP migrations and unfavourable economic indicators in many regions.
Gartner was slightly less pessimistic, estimating a decline of 5.2% to 71.7M units, of which most, if not all, was in desktop computers. The company thinks that mobile PCs (which includes Windows tablets) may actually have gained a little.
Both companies were more optimistic about the US, being only a 1% decline, but conversely Japan saw a disastrous 44% drop, based on an exceptional Q1 2014 (driven by upcoming tax hikes).
By vendor, IDC reported continued market consolidation, with leaders Lenovo and HP both gaining around 2% of share (to 19.6% and 19% respectively). Dell held on to 3rd place, and Apple’s seasonality dropped it back out of the top 5 globally, though in the US it gained a little to a 10.9% share, in 4th place.