HP was the top global PC vendor for the fourth quarter of 2012, while worldwide PC sales dropped by 6.4 percent when compared to the same quarter in 2011.
IDC's Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker revealed that 2012's fourth-quarter global PC shipments was 89.8 million units. HP shipped 15 million PCs during the quarter, resulting in a market share of 16.7 percent.
Lenovo followed in second place with 14.1 million shipments, translating into a market share of 15.7 percent. Dell settled for third place with 9.4 million shipments and a 10.6 percent market share, with Acer following with 6.9 million shipments and Asus with 6.4 million.
The aforementioned decrease in PC sales is worse than IDC's forecast of 4.4 percent. It also marked the first time the industry experienced a year-on-year decline during the holiday season. Ultimately, PC shipments in 2012 were down by 3.2 percent.
"Although Q3 was focused on the clearing of Windows 7 inventory, preliminary research indicates the clearance did not help significantly the uptake of Windows 8 systems." said IDC analyst Jay Chou. "The PC ecosystem has thus far not adequately conveyed a fuller spectrum of the benefits of the latest Wintel platform. Lost in the shuffle to promote a touch-centric PC, vendors have not forcefully stressed other features that promote a more secure, reliable, and efficient user experience."
"As Windows 8 matures, and other corresponding variables such as Ultrabook pricing continue to drop, hopefully the PC market can see a reset in both messaging and demand in 2013."
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Zak Islam is a freelance writer focusing on security, networking, and general computing. His work also appears at Digital Trends and Tom's Guide.
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SteelCity1981 And to think just a coule of years ago they were almost going to pull the plug on their consumor pc market too.Reply -
unksol Reply9445902 said:And to think just a coule of years ago they were almost going to pull the plug on their consumor pc market too.
Really? First it was LAST year. 2nd they have been number one on the market for a very very very long time its nothing new. 3rd there was no "pull the plug" it was a proposed spin-off. And finally there was no "they" it was one idiot CEO the board refused to interview before hiring, after he got fired from his last job. And he promptly got fired for trying it.