In a twist surprising to absolutely no one the PC market continues to decline in W. Europe-- according to Gartner Q2 2013 PC shipments total 10.9 million units with -19.8% Y-o-Y decline.
"The market exit of the netbook PC, and vendors reducing their inventory to get the new Intel chips and Windows 8.1 have fueled the decline in W. Europe," the analyst remarks.
One has to keep in mind Gartner does not count tablets (arguably the IT industry's one growth market) in its PC numbers.
Thus all PC segments see Y-o-Y declines in W. Europe-- mobile PCs by -23.9% and desktops by -12.2%. Consumer segment shipments are down by -25.8%, while the professional market sees a -13.5% decline.
When it comes to vendors within the territory HP remains on top, with 20.8% market share despite a -17.4% Y-o-Y shipment decline on shipments reaching 2.2m units. Acer follows with -44.7% Y-o-Y decline, the worst performance of the top 5 vendors.
Lenovo remains the only vendor seeing growth (18.9% Y-o-Y), while Dell sees the slowest decline (-1.10%) thanks to a "strategic shift from profitability protection to market share gain."
Gartner remains slightly optimistic for the 2013 PC market-- a chance for profits from the midrange and high-end segments might show up come Q4 2013 through "attractive" Windows 8.1 PCs featuring Intel Haswell processors, longer battery lives and thinner form factors.
On a per-country basis UK shipments reach 2.2m units with -13% Y-o-Y decline, making Q2 2013 the 11th consecutive quarter of decline for the country. The UK consumer market drops by 25% Y-o-Y, while the Windows 7 migration offsets professional declines to -2% Y-o-Y.
French PC shipments drop by -19.1% Y-o-Y to 2m units, the weakest performance of the 3 major W. European countries in the quarter. The notebook-tablet shift hit the French market hard, as well as inventory reductions caused by the transition to new Haswell-based products.
PC shipments in Germany total 2.1m units, a -18.7% Y-o-Y decrease similarly caused by the shift from consumer PCs to tablets and hybrid devices.
"After several depressing years the PC vendors are now at a make or break point in this industry," the analyst concludes. "The product transition involving both hardware and the upgrade of Windows 8.1 needs to reverse the steep declines we have seen in the PC market."
