According to Gartner Q4 2012 W. European PC shipments drop by -11.7% Y-o-Y to 15.3 million units, with declines across all PC segments as the market continues its shift towards tablets and mobile devices.
"The PC market in W. Europe is in a downward spiral," Gartner says. "In 2012, it experienced the 2nd consecutive year of decline, but less steeply than in 2011, when the PC market in W. Europe decreased -14%. The 2nd consecutive yearly decline indicates that the issues the PC market faces are beyond a weak economy, a poorly understood new OS, or Ultramobiles being priced too high to generate demand.”
Mobile and desktop PC shipments drop by -12.1% and -10.9% respectively in Q4 2012, the professional segment drops by -4.9% (a less severe decline thanks to replacement purchases) and consumer shipments decline by -17.6% Y-o-Y.
HP remains the W. European market leader, even if it lost share in the mobile and home PC segments (leading to a -8.8% Y-o-Y drop in shipments), with 21.5% market share thanks to leadership within the desktop and professional markets.
Acer follows with 11.4% share and shipments reaching 1.75m units, while 3rd placing Lenovo is the only vendor showing growth (23.2% Y-o-Y) through a strong push in both professional and consumer markets.
Asus shipments decline by -8.4% Y-o-Y to 1.72m units due to higher midrange-to-high-end Windows 8 system pricing, and Dell drops to 5th place with 8.7% market share.
"In the future, we expect buyers will not replace secondary or tertiary PCs in their households by allowing them to become obsolete, preferring instead to purchase tablets. We should see an increase in PC margins as users favor PCs with richer applications," Gartner continues.
The 3 major W. European countries fail to see any seasonal upturn in Q4 2012-- UK PC shipments drop by -0.7% Y-o-Y, France PCs slide further downwards by -13.6% Y-o-Y (the strongest decline in the 3 major countries) and Germany sees PC shipments decline by -11.9% to 3.4m units.
"While PC vendors keep hoping for a 'PC plus' era, in reality we are in a smartphone/tablet era, where tablets are winning the battle for content consumption and smartphones are at the forefront of mobility," Gartner concludes. "PCs are continuing to be marginalized and 2013 will be no different."