The W. European PC market continues to decline according to Gartner-- Q1 2012 shipments drop by -3.1% Y-o-Y and total 15.5m units, with declines hitting all market segments.
Italy, Greece, Portugal and Spain are the worst hit territories. Shipments show growth in Germany (7.1%), with lower inventory levels driving growth. The French PC market shows improvement (despite a decline of -3.9%) in the professional segment, and the UK shows moderate 2.4% Y-o-Y growth.
“Consumers continue to focus their spending on alternative computing devices like smartphones and media tablets," the analyst says. The consumer segment is down by -3.8% Y-o-Y, while mobile PCs decline by -5.1% Y-o-Y.
Desk-based PCs remain virtually flat, with shipment growth reaching 0.3%.
Professional PC shipments see a slight improvement (-2.5% Y-o-Y decline) due to increasing Windows 7 deployments.
When it comes to vendors HP takes top spot with 22.9% Q1 2012 market share and shipments reaching 3.5m units. Acer remains 2nd, even if shipments decline by -20.1% to reach 2.3m units.
Gartner says Asus manages to sell a "wide variety" of mobile PCs, with 9.5% market share and shipments reaching 1.5m units.
Dell growth is nearly flat (0.7%), while Lenovo is the fastest-growing (34.6%) thanks to aggressive pricing strategies and an expanding consumer and business presence.
"This quarter had a 'wait and see' feel to it," Gartner remarks. We have to agree-- many retailers prefer to wait for Ivy Bridge-based Ultrabooks and Windows 8-based PCs. However doubts on whether customers will pay the higher price points for such premium products remain.
