Gartner has released a positive preliminary report about the PC market. Global shipments increased for the first time in the second quarter of 2018; although analysts at the company warn that this is not a sign of market recovery.
Worldwide PC shipments hit 62.1 million units in Q2 2018. Representing a 1.4 percent increase over the same period last year. While it isn’t much, this is the first increase the industry has seen since the first quarter of 2012.
“PC shipment growth in the second quarter of 2018 was driven by demand in the business market, which was offset by declining shipments in the consumer segment,” said Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner. “In the consumer space, the fundamental market structure, due to changes on PC user behavior, still remains, and continues to impact market growth. Consumers are using their smartphones for even more daily tasks, such as checking social media, calendaring, banking and shopping, which is reducing the need for a consumer PC.”
Lenovo and HP control the lion’s share of the market, both of which ending Q2 with a 21.9 percent share each. Following this Dell, which managed to avoid seeing its shipments decline over the years.
Despite the good news, Kitagawa cautions that this may only be an outlier and cannot last. This growth has been fueled by the enterprise sector which needs to replace older computers running on Windows 7. As the company pointed out before, this will lead to flat growth for the next two years. After which will see further decline unless the industry can find some new ideas.
