PC Shipments Continue To Tumble

PC shipments declined by 15 percent in the UK during the second quarter of 2011 compared to the same period last year, Gartner said today.

The research firm arrived at a total of 2.5 million with almost all manufacturers suffering losses in market share.

According to their estimates on desktops and notebooks, Acer was hit particularly hard, losing 47.4 percent in Q2 2011 compared to Q2 2010. The figures do not include media tablets.

“Acer’s decline of nearly 50 percent in the second quarter pulled down the market further than expected,” said Isabelle Durand, principal analyst at Gartner.

“Acer had significant inventory that led to its weak performance, but it also prevented other vendors from pushing new shipments into the channel.”

Gartner reckons only Apple and Samsung achieved any growth in its share of shipments to the UK, a modest 1 percent and 5.2 percent respectively.

The consumer market suffered as a result of spending on other devices while the state of the economy stifled the professional sector, Gartner said.

Worldwide decline

The UK was reflective of a poor quarter for the whole of Western Europe, with Gartner measuring an 18.9 percent decline compared to last year.

“The much anticipated uptake in the professional segment, in the wake of migration to Windows 7, was subdued by the negative economic outlook,” said Meike Escherich, principal analyst at Gartner.

“PC shipments in the professional segment declined 9 percent in the second quarter of 2011. The biggest decline continued to come from the consumer segment which decreased 27 percent year-on-year.”

Yesterday Dell cut its 2012 revenue forecast from 5 to 9 percent growth to 1 to 5 percent in the face of worsening outlook for technology spending.

Reuters reported that Dell cited uncertainty over government and corporate spending on everything from servers to software as economic growth stalled in the US.

Dell forecast strong government spending in May and recorded sales of just under $15.7 billion in its fiscal second quarter ended July. The outlook for growth however looks dim as the company said sales for this quarter would likely remain flat, according to Reuters.

Vendor roundup

Acer’s worse than average performance saw Gartner place it in third for UK desktop and notebook shipments, behind Dell in second and HP in first.

Gartner recorded 10.7 percent drop in this quarter compared to last year for HP and 11.8 percent drop for Dell over the same period.

Samsung sits in fourth followed by Apple in fifth.

Towards the end of July another analyst firm, IDC, pegged the decline in Western European PC shipments at 20.9 percent in the second quarter.

It cited similar reasons to Gartner, saying in an announcement at the time that a shift in interest and budget toward other products added to weak consumer demand and slow stock depletion across Western Europe.