Gartner Says Declining Global PC Shipments Signals Significant Market Shift

From DailyTech: According to research firm Gartner, global computer shipments totaled 90.3 million units in Q4 2012. That number represents a 4.9% decline compared to Q4 2011. Just last week, research firm IDC reported a decline of 6.4% from Q4 2012 compared to Q4 2011.

Analysts at Gartner believe that the problems with the PC industry go beyond a sagging global economy alone.

“Tablets have dramatically changed the device landscape for PCs, not so much by ‘cannibalizing’ PC sales, but by causing PC users to shift consumption to tablets rather than replacing older PCs,” said Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner.

“This transformation was triggered by the availability of compelling low-cost tablets in 2012, and will continue until the installed base of PCs declines to accommodate tablets as the primary consumption device,” Kitagawa continued. “On the positive side for vendors, the disenfranchised PCs are those with lighter configurations, which mean that we should see an increase in PC average selling prices (ASPs) as users replace machines used for richer applications, rather than for consumption.”

Gartner reports that consumers no longer view computers as the number one gift item during the holiday season. The analytics firm also reports that the launch of Windows 8 did not have a significant effect on computer shipments for Q4.

Gartner ranks HP as the top computer maker in the industry with 16.2% of the market. Lenovo has the second place spot with 15.5% of the market and Dell has third place with 10.2% of the market. Rounding out the top five are Acer with 9.5% of the market and Asus with 7.2%.

The only two companies that actually grew in Q4 2012 compared to Q4 2011 were Lenovo with 8.2% growth and ASUS with 6.4% growth.

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