IDC: Top 5 PC makers gain in 2014 while growth is still negative
According to data from IDC, the personal computer market has continued to register negative growth for another year but the good news is that the sales are stabilizing and 2015 may see the PC market register positive growth. A total of 80.8 million units were sold in the fourth quarter of 2014 and that took the total sales in 2014 to 308.6 million units, down by just 2.1% compared to the year 2013. As expected Lenovo continued its stay at the top while HP, Dell, Acer and Apple took the remaining four spots in top 5.
Even though, in total, there is a negative growth, the top 5 vendors registered positive growth and Apple, with 18.9% growth QoQ made the most of holiday sales and is now set to take the fourth spot from Acer Group. ‘Others’ category registered 20.7% decline in sales and gave away nearly 7% of share to the top 5 vendors. With respect to regions, while US and Europe shows slower sales, Asiapac shows increase in growth and this resulted in overall growth to be ‘less negative’.
“The strength from market leaders, as well as improvement in Asia/Pacific and the consumer market more generally, are positive signs for the PC market,” said Loren Loverde, IDC Vice President, Worldwide PC Tracker. “Growth of Chrome, Bing, all-in-ones, ultraslim, convertibles, and touch systems similarly make PCs more compelling and competitive. Nevertheless, some of the gains are relatively small, and weakening drivers like Bing promotions and end of XP support transitions, cast a shadow of doubt on the strength of the market going into 2015.”
“The U.S. PC market continued to grow in the fourth quarter, outperforming the global market for the tenth consecutive quarter. The past year was supported by Windows XP to 7 migrations in the commercial segment while consumer volume continued to decline,” said Rajani Singh, Senior Research Analyst, Personal Computing. “Moving forward, the U.S. PC market should see flat to slightly positive growth. The U.S. consumer PC market will finally move to positive growth in 2015, strengthened by the slowdown in the tablet market, vendor and OEM efforts to rejuvenate the PC market, the launch of Window 10, and replacement of older PCs.”
In United States, HP recorded very strong growth in sales (26% growth) and top 5 vendors grabbed 85% of marketshare. Desktop shipments declined by 10% and overall PC sales shows double digit growth. EMEA could only register slight increase in sales in fourth quarter. Asiapac (excluding Japan) registered strong gworth and HP too recovered with positive growth in this region. The reason for overall negative growth is the sales slump in Japan. Japan registered massive slide, drop of 35% YoY and sales volume is below 3 million units in Q42014.
