Dell Slips Down UK PC Shipment Table

Gartner has released its latest PC shipment data for Western Europe and the figures make for grim reading for Dell, particularly in the UK.

In the second quarter of 2009 Dell shipped 597,000 laptops and desktops in the UK. But in the second quarter of 2010, it is estimated to only have shipped 462,000, a fall of 22.6 percent.

Weak UK

This means that Dell has lost its leading position in the UK market and now trails behind first-placed Acer, which shipped 648,000 units in the second quarter of this year (up 36.4 percent), and second-placed HP, which shipped 594,000 units (up 37.8 percent).

PC shipments in the UK totaled 2.9 million units in the second quarter of 2010, a 15.1 percent increase compared with the same period in 2009.

“The UK market remained the weakest of the larger PC markets in Western Europe with growth almost half that of France,” said Ranjit Atwal, research director at Gartner. “Given the UK market was also the weakest in the downturn, its recovery had been much more muted.”

“There is no doubt that the introduction of the austerity measures in the UK has hindered any anticipated improvement in the underlying demand for PCs,” said Atwal. “We don’t expect this to change for the rest of 2010. As businesses and consumers come to terms with the potential impact of the government measures, caution is certainly the keyword across all IT markets and the PC market is currently no different.”

That said, PC shipments in the UK totalled 2.9 million units in the second quarter of 2010, a 15.1 percent increase compared with the same period in 2009.

European Performance

Meanwhile, the European news made for slightly better reading for PC makers in general, as PC shipments in Western Europe totaled 15.6 million units in the second quarter of 2010, a 19.6 percent increase from the same period in 2009.

“Western Europe showed continued growth in the second quarter, recovering quickly from the slowdown seen in the first half of 2009,” said Atwal. “The PC market has so far defied the general economic downturn, but the real test will be in the second half of 2010, since we saw a stronger second half in 2009.”

Gartner has pointed out that it is consumer demand, and not professional demand for new machines that is driving this growth.

Dell Worry

“Despite the increased economic concerns, the Western European PC market is the most competitive we have seen for many years,” said Atwal. “It is now a market influenced by the top 10, and not just by the top five vendors.”

Like the UK, Acer topped the rankings, growing 29.9 percent and shipping an estimated 3.6 million machines. HP came second, growing 12 percent and shipping 3.3 million machines, and Dell was third, growing only 2 percent to ship 1.5 million units.

The negative growth in the UK will no doubt worry Dell bosses, while the company remains locked in a bidding war for cloud storage vendor 3Par. Indeed, the company only recorded a very modest growth in its European shipments, which is sure to increase the pressure on Michael Dell from disgruntled investors.

In a regulatory filing released on 17 August, Dell disclosed that 378 million of the 1.5 billion votes opposed the continued presence of Michael Dell on the company’s board.

Dell told eWEEK Europe UK that it could not provide an official response at the time of writing.