PC sales fall by one-fifth in Western Europe, claims Gartner

UK desktop and laptop sales down by one-quarter since 2010 - independent vendors hardest hit

PC sales in Western Europe crashed by 20 per cent in the second quarter, according to analyst group Gartner, with Acer and Asus experiencing crushing falls in sales of more than 40 per cent.

Gartner's Meike Escherich, principal research analyst, attributed the sharp decline to the demise of the netbook - a market effectively invented by Asus - the continuing lacklustre reception to Microsoft's new Windows 8 operating system and chip inventory reduction ahead of forthcoming new Intel microprocessors.

All PC segments in Western Europe declined, claims Gartner. Mobile and desktop PC shipments fell by 23.9 per cent and 12.2 per cent, respectively. PC shipments in the professional market declined by 13.5 per cent, while the consumer PC market crashed by 25.8 per cent in the second quarter of 2013.

^{Western Europe: PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for Q2 2013. Source: Gartner}

As a result, while shipments fell by 17.4 per cent, HP retained market leadership in the region with a share up marginally to 20.8 per cent, while Acer, which had been catching up, saw its market share fall from 17.3 per cent to 11.9 per cent.

Of the top-five, only Lenovo registered a gain, increasing sales by 18.9 per cent and leapfrogging Dell and Asus to claim third-place with shipments of 1.258 million units.

In the UK, meanwhile, Gartner further claims that total PC shipments have fallen by a quarter over the past three years, with shipments in the second quarter down by 13 per cent compared to 2012.

^{United Kingdom: PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for Q2 2013. Source: Gartner}

Acer, Toshiba and mid-ranking vendors lost the greatest volume of sales, while HP claimed market leadership with a share of 19.9 per cent and sales of 436,000 units in the second quarter, despite a 6.9 per cent fall in sales. Dell, in second place, experienced a marginal 1.2 per cent fall in sales and claimed a market share up at 14.1 per cent.

Independent vendors in the UK, meanwhile - which includes highly regarded vendors such as Novatech, Chillblast, Mesh and PC Specialist - saw sales fall by 23.3 per cent, according to Gartner. Unit shipments for these vendors fell by 240,000 to 789,000.

New PCs - laptops in particular - appearing in the fourth quarter may help arrest the decline in sales, claimed Escherich, but would be unlikely to reverse the steep decline in sales seen in recent years.

"We can expect some attractive new PCs in the stores for the fourth quarter of 2013, running Windows 8.1 with thinner form factors and longer battery life enabled by Intel's Haswell processors," said Escherich.

"These PCs will compete with high-end tablets and will be complemented by a new generation of Intel Atom-based devices that will compete with low-end basic tablets. Although this will not fully compensate for the ongoing PC decline, it does create an opportunity for profit in the midrange and more high end PC segments."