Market forces
The two big PC market researchers seem to have started synchronising their quarterly releases on that topic, so we get to see the consensus from both IDC and Gartner.
In our earlier report on the IDC figures we focused on the broad global market, and the welcome news that it has returned to growth once more, albeit not by much. But within those figures were some interesting insights into how things are going for the big OEMs. Most notably Acer saw a ten percent decline in the number of PCs it shipped, when compared with the same period a year ago.
Gartner's figures paint an even grimmer picture for the Taiwanese PC giant, with a 20 percent contraction over the same period. Within EMEA, where Acer is having all sorts of channel complications, it shipped 35 percent fewer PCs in Q2 of this year than a year ago, and lost the top spot to HP.
"For the second consecutive quarter the PC market in EMEA showed decline," said Ranjit Atwal, research director at Gartner. "The PC market in the region remained weak due to slow consumer demand and lower sell-in with PC shipments. In addition, high inventory adjustments by Acer worsened the downside view of the market.
"If we remove Acer, the EMEA PC market would have showed a 3 percent growth year-on-year. While this may be an impractical view of the market, it is important to separate supply issues of one vendor against the general trends in the market."
In its analysis of the figures, Gartner noted: "Acer's problems stemmed from its low-price, high-volume business model, which is no longer effective." It also noted that some three million mobile PCs were cleared out of distribution in the intervening time.
Preliminary EMEA PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for 2Q11 (Units)
|
Company |
2Q11 Shipments |
2Q11 Market Share (%) |
2Q10 Shipments |
2Q10 Market Share (%) |
2Q11-2Q10 Growth (%) |
|
HP |
4,930,934 |
21.4 |
4,757,512 |
19.6 |
3.6 |
|
Acer |
3,255,000 |
14.1 |
5,001,106 |
20.6 |
-34.9 |
|
Dell |
2,416,497 |
10.5 |
2,217,815 |
9.2 |
9.0 |
|
Asus |
2,005,809 |
8.7 |
2,054,264 |
8.5 |
-2.4 |
|
Lenovo |
1,333,857 |
5.8 |
1,299,758 |
5.4 |
2.6 |
|
Others |
9,128,114 |
39.6 |
8,901,074 |
36.7 |
2.6 |
|
Total |
23,070,211 |
100.0 |
24,231,529 |
100.0 |
-4.8 |
Note: Data includes desk-based PCs, mobile PCs, including mini-notebooks but not media tablet such as the iPad. Final estimates will be subject to change. Source: Gartner (July 2011)
Meanwhile, over in the US, Apple continued to gain ground on the rest, and is now the third biggest PC-maker over there. While iMac and MacBook launches have generally gone down well, a lot of this is surely down to the halo effect of Apple's mobile devices.
"Given the hype around media tablets such as the iPad, retailers were very conservative in placing orders for PCs. Instead, they wanted to secure space for media tablets. Some PC vendors had to lower their inventory through promotions, while others slimmed their product lines at retailers," said Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner.
Preliminary United States PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for 2Q11 (Units)
|
|
2Q11 Shipments |
2Q11 Market Share (%) |
2Q10 Shipments |
2Q10 Market Share (%) |
2Q11-2Q10 Growth (%) |
|
HP |
4,552,777 |
26.9 |
4,608,280 |
25.7 |
-1.2 |
|
Dell |
3,821,759 |
22.6 |
4,236,303 |
23.6 |
-9.8 |
|
Apple |
1,814,000 |
10.7 |
1,671,500 |
9.3 |
8.5 |
|
Toshiba |
1,616,400 |
9.6 |
1,565,000 |
8.7 |
3.3 |
|
Acer |
1,570,257 |
9.3 |
2,028,284 |
11.3 |
-22.6 |
|
Others |
3,539,666 |
20.9 |
3,803,974 |
21.2 |
-6.9 |
|
Total |
16,914,859 |
100.0 |
17,913,341 |
100.0 |
-5.6 |
Note: Data includes desk-based PCs, mobile PCs, including mini-notebooks but not media tablet such as the iPad. Final estimates will be subject to change. Source: Gartner (July 2011)
