PC sales were flat in the quarter ending September 31. But there was one surprise: Lenovo regained the top spot in the market, displacing HP.
“Weakness in consumer PC demand continued in the third quarter, offsetting the strong sales in the business market,” Gartner’s Mikako Kitagawa said, explaining the results.
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“The outlook remains uncertain as we head into the holiday season, when volume will be boosted by many consumer-oriented promotions in entry-level SKUs,” IDC’s Jay Chou added.
Overall, PC makers sold 67.3 million PCs in the quarter, down slightly—let’s call it flat—from the 67.6 million units they sold a year earlier. Given the recent state of the market—after watching PC sales fall for six straight years, this year, we’ve experienced at least one quarter of tiny growth—we’ll take it as a win.
Lenovo emerged as the top PC maker for the first time in several years, having sold slightly more than 16 million PCs in the quarter. HP fell to second place with 15 million units sold.
Perhaps this shouldn’t have been surprising: In August, [Lenovo reported that it had experienced a PC sales surge in the quarter](highest growth in four years), its highest growth in four years. HP, meanwhile, warned of its declining unit sales in traditional PCs.
As for the rest of the industry, not much changed year-over-year or quarter-over-quarter. Dell, Acer, and Apple rounded out the top five, as usual. And if you look just at Gartner’s numbers, and only at the U.S. market, Microsoft somehow managed to crack the top five for the first time ever. That Surface Go must be selling like gangbusters.
Looking ahead, Gartner noted that Intel’s recent warning about meeting PC chipset demand could have a short-term impact on PC sales that result in higher prices and “changes to the vendor landscape,” which I assume means further consolidation. IDC, meanwhile, noted an “uncertain” outlook.
skane2600
<blockquote><em><a href="#352428">In reply to Minke:</a></em></blockquote><p>As I've mentioned here before, growth at the low end is very easy to come by. </p>
skane2600
<blockquote><em><a href="#352806">In reply to VancouverNinja:</a></em></blockquote><p>I think OEMs got into Chromebooks to see if they could be less dependent on Microsoft, just as Microsoft got into ARM processors to see if they could become less dependent on Intel. So far both initiatives haven't paid off for about the same reasons – a very popular body of legacy Windows applications.</p>
shameermulji
<p>Which Lenovo laptop is that in the picture?</p>
Bats
<p>Well, this isn't surprising.</p><p><br></p><p>I am interested to see how PC sales looks in a graph, in order to see where the downhill is trending. With all the negative and neutral news, it's got to be grim. After all, why not?</p><p><br></p><p>I've said this before (several years ago) and I'll say it again. The future of the PC will be it regulated to an appliance, where a single household will have at least one….like a toaster. Back then, I saw the usefulness of the Chromebook as it's replacement, due to it's simplicity and it's low price, but I don't think so anymore. That's because today, we don't need a computer to keep a movie and music collection. We don't need a PC to make a home movie or a create content for Youtube. We don't need a PC, to get and print out directions in order to get to our travel destination. Other than, specialized work, a PC is not needed at all. Moreover, if someone needs/wants information, it comes instantly now….."Hey Google/Alexa, what is the weather tomorrow?" </p><p><br></p><p>Even when it comes to work, I have found myself not needing a PC when I am on the road. I find that I can actually create documents and letters to people using my Pixel, by simply dictating to my phone and have the fabulous and highly accurate voice to text feature create the words for me. Then I copy and paste that to a World template on my phone and send.</p><p><br></p><p>Microsoft's attempt to revive the PC, has just utterly failed. Isn't that what the Surface line was supposed to do? For Microsoft to lead the way to new computing technologies and get the other PC manufacturers to follow them? Isn't that what Surface was for, with the Windows 10 OS being the centerpiece of it all? Well, it clearly hasn't worked. Instead of re-inventing the wheel, Microsoft just recreated it.</p><p><br></p><p>Everything is just so easy now…..and you don't need a PC.</p>