PC Shipments Down in Q4 2013, Lenovo Gains Ground

News

PC shipments took a 5.6 percent dive in the fourth quarter of 2013.

The International Data Corporation (IDC) reports that PC shipments took a 5.6 percent dive in the fourth quarter of 2013, with only 82.2 million units sold. For the full year, unit shipments declined 10 percent from 2012, a record drop due to changes in mobility and personal computing. Commercial purchases helped prevent a larger decline while the consumer side remained weak.

"With shipments totaling 17.1 million PCs in 4Q13, the U.S. market contracted by -1.6 percent from the same quarter a year ago," the report states. "Consumers continued to take a wait-and-see approach, leading to delayed purchases. The migration from Windows XP to Windows 7 and 8 continued to drive some momentum in the enterprise sector and once again businesses fared better than consumers."

According to the report, Lenovo was the worldwide leader in the fourth quarter, owning 18.6 percent of the PC market. Hewlett Packard came in second with a 16.8 percent market share, down 8.5 percent from the same quarter in 2012. Dell ranked as third with a 12.2 percent market share, Acer in fourth with 6.7 percent and Asus with 6.1 percent.

In the United States, Hewlett Packard was in the lead with 24.6 percent of the local market share, down 12.3 percent from the same quarter in 2012. Dell came in second with 21.7 percent, and saw a 6.6 percent growth year over year. Lenovo also saw growth with a 9.8 percent market share and a 10.8 percent year over year growth. Apple came in fourth place followed by Toshiba.

"The PC market again came in very close to expectations, but unfortunately failed to significantly change the trajectory of growth," said Loren Loverde, Vice President, Worldwide PC Trackers. "Total shipments have now declined for seven consecutive quarters, and even the holiday shopping season was unable to inspire a turn in consumer spending. Although U.S. growth slipped a little in the fourth quarter, other regions all improved, reinforcing our view that growth rates will continue to improve gradually during 2014 despite remaining in negative territory."

In year over year numbers, Lenovo still led the global pack, owning 17.1 percent of the market and growing 2.7 percent compared to 2012. Hewlett Packard came in second with 16.6 percent, followed by Dell, Acer and Asus. The only PC vendor that grew in 2013 was Lenovo. Acer saw the biggest year-over-year drop: 28.5 percent.

On a local scale, HP came in first followed by Dell, Apple, Lenovo and Toshiba. Lenovo saw the most growth while Hewlett Packard declined 9.4 percent compared to 2012.

To see the charts, head here.

On a related note, Lenovo's huge lineup of new products at CES may be a sign of its success.

26 Comments Comment from the forums
  • dgingeri
    I don't even plan on upgrading mine for at least another year, and I used to have an annual upgrade cycle tied to my tax return. I got more than enough to outfit a whole new PC from my tax return, but I have no reason whatsoever to upgrade anything now. My Core i7 3930k and dual GTX680s are enough to last through another year, at least. None of the new hardware has any significant performance advantage over what I have, and none of the software I run even pushing my current system close to capacity. When Intel comes out with something significantly faster, I may consider an upgrade. Right now, the last 3 generations have had no significant increase in performance.
    Reply
  • rantoc
    Weak upgrades performance wise from intel and on top of that the garbage Windows 8... its a wonder the market havent stagnated completelly...
    Reply
  • spartanmk2
    PC shipments are always going to be "down" as long as there are smartphones and phablets.
    Reply
  • InvalidError
    12496875 said:
    When Intel comes out with something significantly faster, I may consider an upgrade. Right now, the last 3 generations have had no significant increase in performance.
    With Intel deciding to drop desktop and mobile product cycles to a two years schedule on alternating years because improvements on yearly releases are too small for most people to bother with anymore, you might end up waiting for a long time if all you are interested into is raw CPU performance.

    The next 2-3 years should be interesting as far as seeing how much of a future is left for the traditional PC/laptop in normal people's everyday life is concerned.
    Reply
  • midori7
    As long as intel keeps their prices in the clouds and manufacturers continue to cut out components and raise prices I don't look to upgrade 2-3 yr old systems for a while.
    Reply
  • w8gaming
    PC shipment has been growing for over 30 years, it has reached a peak level and now has to undergo adjustment. This couple with weak performance upgrade and weak OS improvement has accelerated the adjustment. Smartphone and phablets affect this a bit, but these two markets will never kill off the other. PC cannot compete with the mobility of smartphones and phablets, while smartphones and phablets cannot compete with the performance and capacity of PC. To think smartphones can eliminate PC is to think smartphones can eliminate TV, or PC eliminating TV. Just the screen size alone make them different products for different needs. Some people will own multiple of such devices, while some may probably only need one of them. But the market of all of these will continue to exist.
    Reply
  • siman0
    My PC sales are massive for Q4. I made more money in the fourth than I did all year almost double and all the sales in November and December. On average the computers I sold were in the 2k USD range as well. But numbers a little “inflated” because I sold a few of the highest computers I have to offer. Most computers I sold were my AMD Athlon X4, ITX MB, 8 gig ram, 1tb 7200RPM HDD, and a R9 290.
    Reply
  • InvalidError
    12497033 said:
    Weak upgrades performance wise from intel and on top of that the garbage Windows 8... its a wonder the market havent stagnated completelly...
    Stagnation = no growth nor shrinkage.

    PC sales have DROPPED by 1-13% depending on metric, market and market segment, which is technically worse than stagnation.

    Also, even if Intel (and AMD) did make much faster CPUs, it still does not change the fact that 3-5 years old PCs are still adequate if not overkill for 80-90% of people so sales would still be regressing simply because an increasingly large chunk of the market does not need more processing power than it already has. The same thing will happen with mobile devices in 2-3 years when most of the functionality gap between SoC and desktop/laptop parts will be gone.
    Reply
  • InvalidError
    12497185 said:
    smartphones and phablets cannot compete with the performance and capacity of PC.
    This is true only if most people still needed more processing power than what they can already fit in their pockets. Once phones and tablets are powerful enough to handle most people's everyday computing requirements (which is already the case for many) then it does not matter how much "better" PCs might be since the extra capabilities are unnecessary.

    If I didn't need a PC for CAD, HDL, programming and PC-based games, I could do just about everything else from a tablet like the N7v2 with BT keyboard+mouse and external HDMI/DP display.
    Reply
  • Osmin
    I generally had a three year upgrade cycle, for a complete new build, to coincide with the introduction of a new Microsoft operating system to immediately enjoy the new features and speed. During those three years I would probably change the graphics card once, up the memory to the max capacity when the price came down, and may even upgrade the processor once if my motherboard supported it. So it would happen soon after Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows XP, and finally Windows Vista. With the quad core processor available after vista, I noticed that it was fast enough and my graphics card was really making the difference in speed. Therefore, I have not upgraded my motherboard or CPU since Vista but have maxed out my memory and upgraded my graphics card twice. Next upgrade is likely to be as soon as Intel Skylake comes out with PCI Express 4.0 to take advantage of future graphics cards, SATA Express to take advantage of future SSD drives, DDR 4.0, and hopefully an Intel 8-core processor priced under $600.
    Reply