Gartner: Worlwide PC Shipments Fell 0.5 Percent In Third Quarter

According to Gartner Research, worldwide PC shipments totaled 79.4 million units, a decrease of 0.5 percent from the third quarter a year ago. “Growth in the mature markets was offset by a decline in shipments in emerging markets, similar to what was seen in the second quarter of 2014,” said Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner in a

Gartner.

This marked the worst quarter for PC deliveries since 2008. Gartner stated that tablet adoption has “peaked” with mainstream consumers, leading to a renewed interest in PCs. This is not the same case in emerging markets where consumers are more likely to buy low priced tablets instead of PCs. For the first time ever, the sum of the top five PC vendors' share represented two-thirds of the worldwide PC shipments. Lenovo took top ranks with 15.7 million units shipped and saw its market share rise to 19.8 percent from 17.7 percent a year ago.

saw its market share rise to 17.1 percent a year ago to 17.9 percent with 14.2 units shipped. Dell, Acer Group and Asus ranked third, fourth and fifth by total units shipped, respectively. Amit Daryanani of RBC Capital Markets said that Gartner's data may be a “modest positive” for Hewlett-Packard. The analyst adds that healthy PC shipments growth is likely to drive upside to revenues and improve the company's free cash flow. Daryanani also adds that

has approximately 20 percent of its business exposed to the U.S. PC market and will likely benefit from the increase in PC demand Gartner predicted.