Lenovo remains top PC vendor

According to new research from Gartner, the global PC market is continuing to shrink. Shipments in Q3 2015 declined by 7.7 percent compared to Q3 2014, or about six million units. Nevertheless, the firm remains optimistic that Q4 2015 and 2016 as a whole will see a rebound in PC shipments.

Lenovo remains the largest global manufacturer of PCs, with market share of about 20 percent, though its shipments declined over the past year. The story was the same for second-place vendor HP. On the other hand, two major companies managed to increase the number of units shipped: Dell shipped about 0.5 percent more PCs year-on-year in Q3, and fourth-place Apple increased its shipments by about 1.5 percent.

Part of the reason for the decline in overall shipments was appreciation by the US dollar, which impacted EMEA, Japan and Latin America in particular. All of those markets had double-digit declines in shipments, while APAC and the US had single digit dips.

According to Gartner's research, however, things are looking up for the PC market as a whole over the next 12 months. Based on the company's personal tech survey, 50 percent of consumers intend to purchase a PC in the next 12 months versus 12 percent who intend to buy a tablet. In addition, the analyst team expects that new Windows 10 devices will be popular over the holiday season, and will contribute positively to market growth in Q4.

"This change in consumer preferences toward PCs was visible in the preliminary data, as we saw positive growth in the US notebook and premium ultramobile shipments," Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner said. "Soft recovery is expected to start in 4Q 2015, as Windows 10 product refreshes start to appear. In the meantime, PC manufacturers should adjust configurations for 2016 without the impact of price hikes seen in 2015, which will lead into more stable market conditions in the upcoming year."

See a comparison table of selected hybrid Windows PC suppliers on GlobalSources.com