IDC : HP Q1 PC Shipments Rises While Apple's Declines

(RTTNews) - Worldwide shipments of traditional PCs --desktop, notebook, and workstation-- totaled 60.4 million units and recorded flat year-on-year growth in the first quarter of 2018, according to the International Data Corporation or IDC Worldwide Quarterly Personal Computing Device Tracker. The results exceeded the earlier forecast of a 1.5% decline and marks the third consecutive quarter where traditional PC shipment volume has hovered around flat growth year on year.

IDC noted that HP Inc.'s (HPQ) PC sales and market share increased in the first quarter of 2018 while Apple Inc.'s (AAPL) declined as overall industry sales were flat from the year-ago quarter.

The USA market saw a promising opening quarter for the year with almost all major vendors reporting increases in notebook sales. Overall, total PC shipments for the first-quarter stood at 13.5 million units.

In Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), the traditional PC market showed stable growth for the quarter, benefiting from a positive performance across both product categories. Continued mobility adoption and increased customer awareness of the value proposition of more premium devices enabled notebooks to maintain a growth trajectory. On the other side, desktops posted strong results, driven by the growing gaming market as well as long-awaited commercial device refreshes in certain sub regions.

The APeJ traditional PC market ended the quarter slightly short of expectations. India and Indonesia showed better than anticipated results, but the PC market in China performed below forecast with shipments weakened by a smaller number of promotions in the consumer segment and softer demand from the public sector.

The Japan commercial market was a couple points below expectations due to slowing of the momentum seen in the fourth-quarter of 2017, but it still maintained healthy growth in the first-quarter of 2018. The consumer segment was slightly better than the previous quarter in term of growth, but IDC believes shipments during the first three quarters of 2017 affected future demand, causing growth to decelerate in the fourth-quarter of 2017 and after.

IDC said that HP Inc. maintained a comfortable lead over all others in the market with its eighth consecutive quarter of overall growth (up 4.3% year on year) and growth in all regions except Latin America.

Lenovo saw a flat quarter in the first-quarter of 2018, the third consecutive quarter in which the company saw year-on-year volume stabilize with flat global growth and a slower pace of decline in the U.S.

Dell Inc. posted the strongest year-on-year growth out of all the major companies, growing 6.4% and buoyed by strong performances in nearly every region.

Acer held onto the fourth position. Its ongoing expansion into gaming and continued investments in Chromebooks have paid dividends for the company, but also caused some tough going in other arenas.

IDC noted that Apple finished the quarter in the fifth position with a year-on-year decline in shipments of 4.8%.