Worldwide PC shipments totaled 67.2 million units in the third quarter of 2018, a 0.1 percent increase from the third quarter of 2017, according to preliminary results by Gartner, Inc. The global market has shown modest stability for two consecutive quarters.
“The PC market continued to be driven by steady corporate PC demand, which was driven by Windows 10 PC hardware upgrades. We expect the Windows 10 upgrade cycle to continue through 2020 at which point the upgrade demand will diminish,” said Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner. “Despite the third quarter typically showing strong consumer PC sales due to the back-to-school season, weakness in consumer PC demand continued, offsetting the strong sales in the business market.”
“Although the third-quarter results did not show any material impact, the Intel CPU shortage could influence the PC market moving forward with price increases and changes to the vendor landscape. While this shortage will have some short-term impacts, Gartner does not see any lasting impact on overall PC demand. Current expectation is that the shortage will continue into 2019, but Intel will prioritize the high-end CPU as well as the CPUs for business PCs. In the meantime, AMD will pick up the part of the market where Intel cannot supply CPUs.”
Table 1
Preliminary Worldwide PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for 3Q18 (Thousands of Units)
| Company | 3Q18 Shipments | 3Q18 Market Share (%) | 3Q17 Shipments | 3Q17 Market Share (%) | 3Q18-3Q17 Growth (%) |
| Lenovo* | 15,889 | 23.6 | 14,357 | 21.4 | 10.7 |
| HP Inc. | 14,629 | 21.8 | 13,773 | 20.5 | 6.2 |
| Dell | 10,737 | 16.0 | 10,200 | 15.2 | 5.3 |
| Apple | 4,928 | 7.3 | 5,385 | 8.0 | -8.5 |
| Acer Group | 4,074 | 6.1 | 4,322 | 6.4 | -5.7 |
| Asus | 4,013 | 6.0 | 4,774 | 7.1 | -15.9 |
| Others | 12,934 | 19.2 | 14,345 | 21.4 | -9.8 |
| Total | 67,206 | 100.0 | 67,156 | 100.0 | 0.1 |
In the U.S. PC market, shipments declined 0.4 percent compared with the third quarter of 2017 (see Table 2). While desktop shipments were flat, mobile PC shipments slightly declined compared with a year ago. The major driver of the market continued to be business PC demand. “The third-quarter results confirmed the continuous shift to Chromebooks among U.S. K-12 educational institutions. While PCs are still the main device for higher education students, most students already have PCs before they head off to college, so there is limited demand for new PCs from back-to-school sales. Overall, Chromebooks experienced double-digit growth in the U.S., but Chromebooks are not included in the PC market statistics,” said Ms. Kitagawa.
Table 2
Preliminary U.S. PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for 3Q18 (Thousands of Units)
| Company | 3Q18 Shipments | 3Q18 Market Share (%) | 3Q17 Shipments | 3Q17 Market Share (%) | 3Q18-3Q17 Growth (%) |
| HP Inc. | 4,531 | 30.7 | 4,377 | 29.5 | 3.5 |
| Dell | 3,831 | 25.9 | 3,860 | 26.0 | -0.8 |
| Lenovo* | 2,276 | 15.4 | 1,863 | 12.6 | 22.2 |
| Apple | 2,022 | 13.7 | 2,189 | 14.8 | -7.6 |
| Microsoft | 602 | 4.1 | 591 | 4.0 | 1.9 |
| Others | 1,510 | 10.2 | 1,949 | 13.1 | -22.5 |
| Total | 14,771 | 100.0 | 14,828 | 100.0 | -0.4 |
These results are preliminary. Final statistics will be available soon to clients of Gartner’s PC Quarterly Statistics Worldwide by Region program. This program offers a comprehensive and timely picture of the worldwide PC market, allowing product planning, distribution, marketing and sales organizations to keep abreast of key issues and their future implications around the globe.
