PC Shipments Grew 1.1 Percent in 3Q19

Worldwide PC shipments showed a modest increase with 1.1% growth in the third quarter of 2019, according to preliminary results by Gartner. Shipments totaled 68 million units in the third quarter of 2019, up from 67 million units in the third quarter of 2018.

“The Windows 10 refresh cycle continued to be the primary driver for growth across all regions, although the magnitude of the impact varied according to local market conditions and the stage of the refresh cycle,“ said Mikako Kitagawa, senior principal research analyst at Gartner. “For example, in Japan, PC shipments grew 55% in the third quarter of 2019, driven by the Windows 10 refresh cycle and a pending sales tax change. This strong growth helped propel the total worldwide PC market to growth.“

“Neither the Intel CPU shortage nor the U.S.-China trade war had a significant impact on PC shipments in the third quarter of 2019. The Intel CPU shortage has continued to ease, and U.S. tariffs on China-built mobile PCs had a minimal impact on PC shipments as the date for the potential increase in tariffs was pushed out to December 2019,“ said Kitagawa.

The Intel CPU shortage opened opportunities for alternative CPU vendors, namely AMD and Qualcomm, to reposition their processors in the PC market where Intel is dominant. Teaming up with Microsoft, Qualcomm has promoted the “always connected PC,“ which is equipped with LTE capabilities. Though this segment has not taken off, most major PC vendors have released mobile PCs with cellular antennas built in. Microsoft is expected to release an LTE-capable mobile PC soon.

The top PC vendors have improved their profit margins from their PC business as a result of declining component prices, including DRAM and SSDs, over the past few quarters. Margin improvement strengthened the positions of the top three vendors which was already significant. The top three vendors, as well as Acer, also experienced year-over-year growth in shipments in the third quarter of 2019.

Preliminary PC Unit Shipment Estimates for 3Q19 (Thousands of Units)

Lenovo retained the No. 1 position in the third quarter of 2019 with 24.7% market share and 5.8% growth. The company experienced strong growth in Japan, Latin America and EMEA. HP experienced its second quarter in a row of year-over-year shipment growth. Desktop shipments were particularly strong for HP in Asia/Pacific and Japan. Dell continued to experience strong PC shipment growth in the third quarter of 2019, with 5.5% growth.

This preliminary report does not include Chromebook shipments because Gartner does not define them as a PC device. Chromebook growth has outpaced PC since Gartner began tracking the market in 2012, but there are now signs of saturation in North America. While the worldwide market grew in the third quarter of 2019, preliminary research showed that the North American market experienced a modest decline for the first time since its launch in 2011.