Gartner: Worldwide PC shipments decline 4.3%, HP reclaims top position

According to preliminary results by market researcher Gartner, Worldwide PC shipments totaled 61.1 million units in the second quarter of 2017, a 4.3 percent decline from the second quarter of 2016.

The data said that HP Inc. reclaimed the top position from Lenovo in the worldwide PC market in the second quarter and achieved has achieved five consecutive quarters of year-over-year growth.

Lenovo's global shipments declined 8.4 percent in the second quarter of 2017 and Dell Dell achieved five consecutive quarters of year-on-year global shipment growth, as shipments increased 1.4 percent.

In Asia/Pacific, PC shipments surpassed 21.5 million units in the second quarter of 2017, down 5.1 percent from the same period last year.

The PC market in this region was primarily affected by market dynamics in India and China like in India, the pent-up demand after the demonetization cooled down after the first quarter, coupled with the absence of a large tender deal compared to a year ago and higher PC prices brought about weak market growth. The China market was hugely impacted by the rise in PC prices due to the component shortage.

"Higher PC prices due to the impact of component shortages for DRAM, solid state drives (SSDs) and LCD panels had a pronounced negative impact on PC demand in the second quarter of 2017," said Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner.

Kitagawa said, "The approach to higher component costs varied by a vendor. Some decided to absorb the component price hike without raising the final price of their devices, while other vendors transferred the costs to the end-user price."