EMEA PC shipments total 26.6M units in Q3 2011 according to Gartner-- a -2.9% Y-o-Y decline, the 3rd consecutive decline for the market.
Consumer demand remains weak in, with lower sell-in to the channel.
Gartner says Q-o-Q growth provides a better picture of the market due to the current uncertain environment-- in which case the market shows 17.1% Q-o-Q growth, higher than seasonally expected and a sign of potential stability after 4 weak quarters.
Acer keeps on pulling the market average down-- “The impact on the market of Acer’s difficulties is clear,” Gartner says, as Acer continues suffering from poor performance and prolonged inventory clearance, declining by -39.3% Y-o-Y and holding 13.6% share of the Q3 2011 market.
HP beats Acer and becomes top EMEA PC vendor, with 20.1% market share and shipments totalling 5.3M with 2.9% Y-o-Y growth. Gartner remarks "HP managed the impact of separating its PC division better than we had expected."
Asus overtakes Dell to 3rd place, with shipments totalling 3.6M (with 13.3% Y-o-Y growth) thanks to increased mobile PC sales in both consumer and SMB markets. Dell follows with 7.4% market share, shipments totalling 2.4M units and declines of -2.4% Y-o-Y.
Lenovo is 5th with strong performance in both enterprise and consumer markets, growing by 22.2% Y-o-Y with shipments reaching 2M units.
Gartner concludes many PC vendors were hoping tablet shipments would boost their H2 2011 growth-- but with the collapse of non-Apple tablet market, most are going back to pushing PCs to retailers. However retailers remain cautions, shortening order lead times and passing more costs to PC vendors in a period where margins are under pressure.
