Tablets in, netbooks out is no longer a media-hyped fashion trend. Gartner and IDC have the cold, hard, third-quarter PC sales numbers to back it up.
Sales of PCs grew much less than expected worldwide, with consumers delaying purchases as they thought instead about buying a tablet, according to Gartner.
The research firm reported worldwide PC shipments of 88.3m units in the third quarter, up 7.6 per cent on a year ago but below its earlier forecast of 12.7 per cent growth.
Its rival IDC, which uses a different methodology, reported 89.7m shipments, up 11 per cent on a year earlier but nearly 3 percentage points below its expectations.
In the US, growth was up just 3.8 per cent year-on-year, well below second-quarter growth of 11.7 per cent and IDC projections of around 11 per cent.
As Intel indicated in its earnings on Tuesday, things picked up in September after a sluggish August in mature markets that had prompted the world’s biggest chipmaker to reduce its revenue forecast.
“Lower PC component costs, budding excitement around new media-centric form factors and continued business buying should still make for a competitive holiday season,” said Jay Chou, IDC analyst.
IDC said Apple’s influence on the PC market continued to grow, particularly in the US, as the iPad had a negative impact on the netbook market.
Intel dominates netbooks with its Atom microprocessor and reported third-quarter sales fell 4 per cent on the second quarter.
Gartner said consumer mobile PC sales in the US were the weakest in years.
“Hype around media tablets has led consumers and the channels to take a ‘wait and see’ approach to buying a new device,” said Mikako Kitagawa, Gartner analyst.
Non-student buyers normally lured by back-to-school promotions had stayed away from PC purchases, she said, partly because of the gloomy economy and partly because of the promise of the iPad and its tablet rivals.
HP remained the top PC vendor globally with a 17.5 per cent market share, followed by Acer with 13.1 per cent, Dell with 12.2 per cent and Lenovo with 10.4 per cent, according to Gartner.
