Worldwide PC shipments in the first quarter of 2015 managed to beat earlier grim expectations, according to International Data Corporation (IDC), but are still down by 6.7 percent compared to the same period last year.

Reaching a total of 68.5 million units in the first quarter of 2015 (Q1 2015), worldwide PC shipments did a whole lot better than earlier expectations but were still down by 6.7 percent compared to the Q1 2014. While PC shipments had a strong second half last year, Q1 2015 was not that good with inventory build-up of Windows Bing based notebooks, commercial slow down following the Windows XP refresh and constrained demand in many regions due to currency fluctuations and unfavorable economic indicators, ending up with the lowest recorder volume since Q1 2009.

According to Rajani Singh, Senior Research Analyst, Personal Computing, "PC shipments in the United States declined at a slower rate than all other regions in first quarter, outperforming worldwide trends for the eleventh consecutive quarter," and "the upcoming launch of Windows 10 will consolidate the best of Windows 7 and Windows 8.1. In addition to the free upgrade for consumers for a year after the release, Windows 10 should be a net positive as there is pent-up demand for replacements of older PCs." This should mean that PC shipments will go up in the next period.

When it comes to specific vendors, Lenovo still holds the top position with 13.4M units and even managed to grow by 3.4 percent. HP remained at second position while Dell is currently at the third position. ASUS and Acer has been doing quite well but Apple and Toshiba are fourth and fifth largest vendors.

When it comes to region specific details, the United States did well and suffered only a 1 percent drop while Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region have seen a rather significant decline. Asia/Pacific and Japan saw a rather big hit as well.





Source: IDC.com.