Global sales of PCs dropped 4.3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2018, leading to a total fall in PC sales for the year of 1.3 percent, according to the latest Gartner survey.
The three top players – Lenovo, HP and Dell – accounted for 63 percent of overall sales with 68.6 million units between them in Q4.
The Asia/Pacific PC market – in which Australia is a major player – was responsible for just 24.2 million units in Q4, a 4.6 percent decline from the fourth quarter of 2017.
Gartner said that, after a couple of quarters of modest growth, the global market began to slow in Q4, largely due to political and economic uncertainty and a CPU shortage.
Consumer demand remained weak in the recent holiday season, but according to Gartner end-of-year sales are no longer a major factor driving consumer demand for PCs. This appears to be because consumers are spending more on mobile phones.
Chinese PC maker Lenovo was the biggest winner in global sales, with its sales of 58.4 million PCs up 5.9 percent from last year. HP was in second place with a 21.7 percent market share, but its numbers were down 4.4 percent. Dell came in third with 15.9 percent – and with market share up a modest 1.4 percent.
In the US, sales were down 4.5 percent, as small business buyers stayed away in a quarter that is typically a buying season for small office/home office (SOHO) and small business buyers.
Lenovo again topped sales in the US with 15.2 percent of the market and growth up 23.4 percent for the quarter. HP had 33.4 percent market share, growth down -7.6 percent and Dell with 25.7 percent, growth up 0.9 percent.
Apple also had softer PC sales last quarter, down 2.1 percent in the US and 3.8 percent worldwide. Gartner found Apple PCs account for 12.4 percent of market share in the US and 7.2 percent worldwide.
