Apple saw a year-over-year drop of 3.8% in U.S. market share according to a report released today by Gartner, with Dell and Lenovo capturing significant growth at the expense of the rest of the market. The U.S. PC market saw a small increase in total units shipped, while internationally the PC market contracted by 1.7 percent.
In the U.S. market, PC shipments totaled 14.1 million units in the first quarter of 2014, a 2.1 percent increase from the same period last year (see Table 2). HP maintained the No. 1 position, as it accounted for 25 percent of PC shipments in the U.S. market. Dell and Lenovo experienced the strongest growth among the top five vendors, with growth rates of 13.2 and 16.8 percent.
"In terms of the major structural shift of the PC market, the U.S. market is ahead of other regions," Ms. Kitagawa said. "The installed base of PCs started declining in 2013, while the worldwide installed base still grew. The U.S. PC market has been highly saturated with devices: 99 percent of households own at least one or more desktops or laptops, and more than half of them own both. While tablet penetration is expected to reach 50 percent in 2014, some consumer spending could return to PCs."
Separately, IDC reported similar overall trends, with Apple seeing its U.S. PC market share dropping to 10.3%, down from 11% last year. Globally, the firm saw the PC market shrink by 4.4 percent.
Apple has not updated any of its Mac products since early last fall.
Article Link: U.S. Mac Sales Fall in Winter Quarter, Global PC Market Sees Continued Sales Falloff