Global PC market suffers record decline in 2013

Want China Times, CNA 2014-01-11

The Asus Transformer Book T100. (Photo/Tu Chih-hao)

Worldwide personal computer shipments for 2013 fell 10% from a year earlier, marking the steepest year-on-year decline in the sector's history, due to rising demand for mobile devices, according to statistics by Gartner.

In a report released Thursday, The US-based information technology market research firm said 2013 global PC shipments totaled 315.97 million units, down from 351.07 million units in 2012.

Shipments by Acer dropped 28.1% and those by Asustek dropped 17.7%, in 2013, Gartner said.

Last year, Acer shipped 25.69 million PCs, ranking as the world's largest PC vendor, with a market share that fell to 8.1% from 10.2% in 2012.

Asustek was in fifth place in 2013, with shipments of 20.03 million units and a global market share of 6.3%, compared with 6.9% in 2012.

China's Lenovo Group emerged as the world’s largest PC supplier, shipping 53.27 million units, up 2.1% from a year earlier and a market share that grew from 14.9% in 2012 to 16.9% in 2013.

US Hewlett-Packard with a market share of 16.2% and Dell with an 11.6% share, ranked second and third, Gartner said.

HP's 2013 shipments fell by an annual 9.3% to 51.25 million units, while Dell shipped 36.79 million PCs last year, down 2.2% from the previous year.

In the fourth quarter of last year, global PC shipments dropped 6.9% year-on-year to 82.63 million units, marking the seventh consecutive quarterly decline.

In the October-December period, Acer shipped 6.47 million units, down 16.0% from a year earlier, holding a 7.8% share of the global market, which was the fourth largest in the world but a year-on-year drop of 0.9 percentage points.

Asustek was the fifth largest PC vendor in the fourth quarter, shipping 5.40 million units, down 19.0% from a year earlier. Its market share fell to 6.5% from 7.5%.

Lenovo took first position in the fourth quarter, with shipments of 14.93 million units, accounting for 18.1% of the global market, ahead of HP with 16.4% and Dell with 11.8 %.