Data from market research company Gartner show Apple is the only top-five PC vendor that managed to grow its shipments last year from 2014, against the negative trend that saw overall PC shipments decline for four straight years.
Apple took the No. 5 position in 2015, shipping 20.7 million Macs and giving a 7.2 percent share of the market, up 5.8 percent from 2014. Apple beat Acer on the year as the Taiwanese company suffered a 15.3 percent decline.
Lenovo took the top spot in 2015 with 57.1 million units shipped, giving a 19.8 percent marketshare. The company’s growth fell 3.1 percent, however, in line with the rest of the industry.
HP came in second with 52.6 million PCs shipped and 18.2 percent of the computer market, a fall of 4.4 percent on the year. Dell and Asus made up the rest of the top five with 39.2 million and 21.2 million, giving 13.6 percent and 7.3 percent of the market. Dell fell 3.3 percent i 2015, while Asus fell 6.5 percent.
“In 2015, local currency devaluation also played a key role in the market conditions”, said Kitagawa. “EMEA, Latin America and Japan faced a major impact from the devaluation, showing double-digit declines in 2015. In contrast, the U.S. and Asia/Pacific experienced minor declines of almost flat to low single-digit declines as the currency issue did not affect these regions”.
In Q4 2015, Gartner estimates Apple shipped 5.7 million Macs giving 7.5 percent of the global market, up 2.8 percent from Q4 2014.
Chinese company Lenovo held its global lead with 15.4 million units shipped in Q4, equivalent to 20.3 percent of the market but down 4.2 percent on the year. HP shipped 14.2 million computers giving an 18.8 percent share, down 8.1 percent from last year. Dell and Asus came in with 10.2 million and 6 million units shipped, a fall of 5.1 percent and 3.2 percent.
“The fourth quarter of 2015 marked the fifth consecutive quarter of worldwide PC shipment decline”, said Mikako Kitagawa, the principal analyst at Gartner. “Holiday sales did not boost the overall PC shipments, hinting at changes to consumers’ PC purchase behaviour“.
SOURCE: Gartner.
Larry Banks is a keen follower of technology and finance. He has worked for a variety of online publications, writing about a diverse range of topics including mobile networks, patents, and Internet video delivery technologies.
