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Western European PC shipments fell in Q1 2012
IT News |
15/05/2012
Slightly fewer PCs were shipped in Western Europe during the first quarter of 2012 compared to the previous year, it has been claimed.
Research conducted by IT analyst Gartner indicated that 15.5 million units were shipped between January and March, down by 3.1 per cent on the equivalent period in 2011.
The PC markets of Italy, Greece, Portugal and Spain were the worst hit, with the ongoing eurozone crisis seemingly impacting on demand for IT hardware.
"Although we saw moderate growth in professional PC shipments, the overall PC market in Western Europe showed a decline,” said Meike Escherich, principal analyst at Gartner.
“Consumers continued to focus their spending on alternative computing devices like smartphones and media tablets."
HP remained the market leader with a 22.9 per cent market share, up from 20.9 per cent in Q1 2011.
However, second-placed Acer saw its market share contract by a fifth, down from 17.8 per cent of the market to 14.6 per cent.
Asus saw 16.8 per cent year-over-year growth to a 9.5 per cent share, while Dell increased its portion of the market from 8.8 per cent to 9.2 per cent and Lenovo from 6.2 per cent to 8.6 per cent.
In the UK, the PC market totalled three million units in the first quarter of 2012.
This represented an increase of 2.4 per cent compared with the equivalent period in 2011.
The desk-based segment showed the greatest increase, with a rise of 7.2 per cent, however mobile decreased by 0.3 per cent.
"After a decline of 16 per cent in 2011, the UK PC market showed stability in terms of shipment volume," said Ranjit Atwal, research director at Gartner.
“Shipments of professional PCs grew 3.2 per cent in the first quarter of 2012, but it remains to be seen if this is a sign of real demand or just inventory refreshment.”
Posted by Stephen Wilkinson
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