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Lenovo fuels the first PC sales increase in six months
The PC market has been pretty gloomy of late, but global shipments went up by at least 1.5 percent after two down quarters, according to Gartner and IDC. Lenovo led the pack with a 25 percent share, followed by HP and Dell with 22.2 and 16.9 percent, respectively. The growth was driven in part by the latest Windows 10 refresh and an easing of the Intel CPU shortage, which has adversely affected PC sales for the last 18 months.
Business and gaming boost PC shipments for the first time since 2012
Supposing you've followed the PC's steady downward spiral over the last few years, the following news might surprise you: Between April and June worldwide PC shipments marked a 1.4 percent increase compared to the same timeframe last year. Market analysis firms Gartner and IDC agree that it's largely due to business customers upgrading to Windows 10 laptops, desktops and workstations. But the latter asserts that shipments totaled 62.3 million units (representing a 2.7 increase) while the former reports shipments jumped by 62.1 million units (a 1.4 percent increase). The biggest areas of growth? Premium models and entry-level machines.
Gartner: PC sales continue to slide as tablets eat their lunch
PC shipments are still heading the wrong way down the gadget freeway, according to Gartner, who thinks that we're now consuming media mostly on tablets and just flitting over to the PC for grunt work. The survey outfit theorized that a single shared computer can often suffice for a family, with individuals getting their own tablet instead of a laptop or desktop for personal stuff -- especially with compelling, inexpensive new entries like the Nexus 7. Gift-givers were less inclined to wrap up PCs this Christmas, and Windows 8 didn't give them much of a boost either, according to the figures. The only companies with anything to celebrate during the period were Lenovo and Asus, who experienced 8.2 and 6.4 percent boosts respectively, reflecting another trend that competitors like HP and Dell will want to nip in the bud -- and fast.
Lenovo's Q1 shows 'record high' market share, profits up 30 percent to $141 million
After delivering an overachieving laptop, Lenovo has delivered financial results that also exceeded expectations, producing $8 billion in revenue and $141 million net profit. Those figures are up 35 and 30 percent respectively over last year, which the company has chalked up to a higher than ever market share of 15 percent. That growth came in part from a 59 percent sales bump in emerging markets like India and Brazil, on top of a 9 percent spurt in its home market -- lifting the company 24 percent in world-wide PC shipments for the quarter. Lenovo has also become the second largest player in China's smartphone market, after Samsung, now up to a 13 percent market share. CEO Yang Yuanqing also proclaimed that, unlike other Redmond partners, he wasn't stressed about Microsoft's Surface tablet -- and that his company had "much better hardware" than the software giant.
Origin PC upgrading pre-Ivy Bridge orders with new silicon, asking nothing in return
Sure, you may need to shop around to find a replacement for that 11-inch number Dell pulled off the shelves, but that doesn't mean you need to miss out on a free Ivy Bridge upgrade. Origin PC tells us that it's offering the very same silicon swap as Dell to folks who pulled the trigger on any of its laptop and desktop PCs before Intel's big launch. If your order hasn't shipped yet, you're looking at an upgrade. Now if only we could find a manufacturer willing to hand out free GPU upgrades.
Canalys: Apple leading PC maker in Q4 2011, if you count iPads
Best quarter in Apple's history? Check. Retaking the smartphone crown from Samsung? Check. How about becoming the world's largest PC manufacturer? If you're Canalys and you factor iPads into the equation, then yes, another check. Per the research firm, "client PCs" (which include "desktops, netbooks, notebooks and tabs") grew by 16 percent to hit 120 million in Q4, from which Apple's 20 million units (15 million iPads + 5 million Macs) grabbed the leading 17 percent share. Cupertino's followed by HP, Lenovo, Dell and Acer in that order -- all of whom, save for Lenovo, saw their piece of the PC pie shrink. Not only did their slices shrink, but without slates the entire tart was .4 percent smaller than last year -- meaning that all of the growth in "client PC" segment was due to tablets. With that kind of statistical precedence Windows 8 can't come soon enough, right Stevie B?
China inches ahead of US in PC sales for the first time
We may be living in a "post PC" world according to some, but PCs are unquestionably still big business, and they're now a bigger business in China than anywhere else. That's according to the latest report from market research firm IDC, at least, which found that both PC sales and shipments in China inched ahead of those in the US for the second quarter -- the first time that's ever happened, and earlier than IDC had previously projected. In terms of hard numbers, that translates to sales of $11.9 billion in China (compared to $11.7 billion in the US), and shipments of 18.5 million units, which represents a 14.3 percent jump year-over-year (as opposed to a 4.9 percent drop to 17.7 million units in the US). Not surprisingly, Lenovo is the big winner in all of this -- it's both the top PC maker in China and the fastest growing one, with a market share just shy of 32 percent.
HP releases 2011 Q2 earnings early, following leak of foreboding internal memo
HP kicked off this morning's Q2 earnings call citing a leaked company memo that recently popped up at Bloomberg. That memo, which had the outfit's CEO, Leo Apotheker warning of "another tough quarter," resulted in a five percent drop in HP shares in after-hours trading Monday, according to the Wall Street Journal, and prompted the release of the outfit's Q2 earning a day ahead of schedule -- an earnings call was originally slated for Wednesday. According to the report, the company managed to pull in $31.6 billion in revenue and $2.3 billion in earnings, compared to $30.8 billion in revenue and $2.2 billion in earnings the same time last year. So what brought about the pot-stirring internal memo? Well, it seems HP's struggled to keep up with the competition when it comes to consumer computer sales. Despite an increase in revenue in every other segment of the company's business, HP's Personal Systems Group (which covers enterprise and consumer sales) saw revenue decline five percent year-over-year, with the portion covering consumer computers down 23 percent. That might seem like a big dip, and it is, but Apotheker says the company is "excited by the tablet opportunities," continuing on to say that the impending release of the company's TouchPad "will be an exciting product release for HP." For now, we'll just have to sit back and see if the webOS slate has the stuff to pull HP out of the consumer computer lurch. Full PR after the break.
Apple takes a bite out of PC market
For the first time in six quarters, worldwide shipments of personal computers declined during the first three months of 2011, according to reports from Gartner Inc. and International Data Corp. (IDC) released this week. Despite faltering demand for PCs, Apple enjoyed increased sales and market share compared to the year-ago quarter. IDC's report indicated 80.6 million PCs shipped worldwide during the quarter -- a 3.2% decline from the same time last year. Gartner's figures showed sales dipped by 1.1% to 84.3 million units. In the United States, both firms agreed PC sales dropped from about 17 million units in the first quarter of 2010 to about 16.1 million PCs this year. Meanwhile, Apple watched its figures grow in the US, netting either 8.5% or 9.3% of the market -- a healthy jump from the 7% share the Cupertino-based company saw at the start of 2010. Apple's iPad may have also taken a significant bite out of PC sales. IDC said tablets like the iPad, which weren't included in either reporting firm's PC shipment calculations, contributed to shrinking demand for more powerful -- and more expensive -- notebooks and desktops.
Dell moves back up to #2 position in global PC sales, Acer slips to 3rd, HP still reigns supreme
Acer Chairman JT Wang is quick to say that he thinks that iPad sales are only going down from here, but maybe he should listen to that age-old idiom: people in fragile economies shouldn't throw stones. According to iSuppli's latest report on the global PC market, Acer slipped down to third place after losing 6.2 percent of its market share compared to last quarter. Dell, meanwhile, lost a relatively slim 1.2 percent of its share, bumping it back up to second place -- a position it had previously given up to Acer. Meanwhile HP still sits on top, commanding 18.1 percent of the market share, though that too is down, 6.3 percent over last quarter. Still, all three are well up over last year, an encouraging sign in these supposedly troubling times.
Worldwide PC shipments up slightly in 2009 -- is an even more decent 2010 underway?
An IDC Quarterly PC Tracker report released yesterdays found that PC shipments overall for 2009 were up about 2.8 percent over 2008 -- not exactly a game changing stat or anything, but we're sure the manufacturers will take what they can get. The upswing was apparently largely due to the strong fourth quarter (and the positive debut of Windows 7), which made up for the abysmal first quarter, second quarter, and semi-abysmal third quarter. In that last quarter of the year, PC sales showed a 15.2 percent growth over 2008 worldwide, while in the US, sales were up 24 percent over the last year, with 20.7 million units shipped. Another trend noted in the report, is, unsurprisingly, the fact that people continue to purchase cheaper PCs -- mostly in the form of laptops and netbooks. All this means that retailers and manufacturers profit margins are thinning out, but hey, we'll leave the worrying to the economists -- where's that circular for the fifteen dollar netbook?
Acer poised to beat Dell, become number two PC maker
Interesting piece in the New York Times today about Acer -- the company is about to ride the tidal wave of netbooks and other el-cheapo computers straight to the number two spot on the PC sales chart. That's a big deal -- no non-US company has ever made it so high -- and it's interesting that the strategies Acer took to get there are the same things Dell's been trying to do lately: it's heavy on low-cost, stylish laptops and netbooks, it keeps inventory extremely lean, and it relies on an extensive set of retail partnerships in Europe. What's more, the Aspire One has been the best-selling netbook for a while now, and we'd say Acer's way out in front of the CULV thin-and-light race with the Timeline -- in fact, we'd say the only open question here is whether the company can take all this computing success and translate it to something worthwhile in the smartphone space. Based on what we've seen so far, we've got our doubts, but we'll see what those super-secret Android sets look like before we place our bets.
