Gartner: PC market grew worldwide last quarter

PC manufacturers shipped a total of 62.1 million desktops and laptops in the past three months, according to Gartner, a 1.4 percent increase from the same period last year. The increase is attributable to companies replacing PCs with Windows 10.

It would be the PC market’s first quarterly growth since 2012, based on Gartner’s figures. According to Gartner, the growth occurred in all regions worldwide, but the market researcher warns that this does not mean that the PC market is recovering. For example, consumer PCs continued to decline and the increase in the business market is the result of an upgrade cycle to move to Windows 10. That cycle will have peaked in two years, after which PC manufacturers will have to find other ways to achieve growth.

In the emea region, which includes Western Europe, growth was 1.3 percent to 17.4 million PCs. Especially in Germany and the United Kingdom there was a demand for business PCs. Lenovo in particular benefited from the growth, partly due to the joint venture with Fujitsu’s PC division, which started in March. Lenovo therefore has a comparable market share to HP, according to Gartner.

Gartner’s competitor IDC noted at the beginning of this year that PC deliveries worldwide were already on the rise at the end of 2017. The two market researchers use different methods to calculate PC deliveries.