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Three PC vendors accounted for well over half of the global PC shipments during the first quarter of 2018, with HP, Lenovo and Dell taking the top three rankings, respectively.
The three mega-vendors made up nearly 57 per cent of the global PC shipments, which topped out at around 61.7 million units for the three months ending March, according to the latest figures by industry analyst firm, Gartner.
During the corresponding period last year, the three vendors accounted for 54.5 per cent of global shipments.
While HP topped the list, shipping 12.86 million units during the quarter, Dell, which came third on the global shipments ranking, experienced the strongest growth rate among the top six vendors worldwide, as its shipments increased 6.5 per cent.
By comparison, HP’s worldwide PC shipments increased 2.8 per cent in the first quarter of 2018. Lenovo, which came in second in terms of shipment volume, saw its global PC shipments remain flat in the first quarter of 2018.
While the top four PC vendors – including Apple in fourth place – saw some growth, the quarter marked yet another decline in total worldwide PC shipments, with the global tally drawn down by diminishing volumes in the Asia Pacific and United States markets.
Asus, which came in fifth, experienced a 12.5 per cent year-on-year decline during the period, while Acer saw an 8.6 per cent decline.
In the first quarter of 2018, PC shipments in Asia Pacific declined 3.9 per cent compared with the same period last year, while shipments in the US decreased 2.9 per cent.
PC shipments in Asia Pacific totaled 21.9 million units in the first quarter of 2018, a 3.9 per cent decline from the first quarter of 2017.
This comes after the Asia Pacific region recorded a 0.6 per cent increase in the fourth quarter of 2017, selling 25 million units, compared to the same period in 2016.
"The major contributor to the decline came from China, where unit shipments declined 5.7 percent year over year," Gartner principal analyst, Mikako Kitagawa, said.
"This was driven by China's business market, where some state-owned and large enterprises postponed new purchases or upgrades, awaiting new policies and officials' reassignments after the session of the National People's Congress in early March.”
While other regions saw some minimal growth, it was not enough to drive overall growth for the PC industry, according to Gartner.
The latest figures see the PC market experience its 14th consecutive quarter of decline, dating back to the second quarter of 2012.
Indeed, as at December last year, worldwide PC and notebook shipments had marked six consecutive years of decline after closing 2017 with a 2.8 per cent fall.
"In the first quarter of 2018, there was some inventory carryover from the fourth quarter of 2017," Kitagawa said. "At the same time, vendors were cautious in overstocking due to the upcoming release of new models in the second quarter of 2018 with Intel's new eighth-generation core processors."
