HP gains top spot in PC shipments market

HP remained the top PC vendor in the UK and Western European in the first quarter of this year.

However, the total number of shipments in this market declined as a result of people buying mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets, a report by Gartner has found.

HP was said to have weathered the storm in the overall region as a result of strong sales of professional PCs. In the UK it also came out tops as a result of well-priced products, while in France it beat vendors to the top spot.

However, Gartner pointed out that it was only Toshiba which really showed growth here, moving into the fifth position thanks to its availability of its mainstream mobile PCs

However it wasn’t good news over in Germany where HP which lost number one position to Acer.

In the UK markets, Dell’s performance was described by Gartner as “weak”, and it continued to lose share. Lenovo was the major winner, with 59.5 percent growth.

In general, PC shipments in this region totalled 15.5 million units in the first quarter of this year – a 3.1 percent decline compared with the equivalent period in 2011, while the professional PC market saw a decline of 2.5 percent in the first quarter of 2012.

There was a small glimmer of hope with desk-based PC shipments, driven by better demand in the professional PC market, which grew by 0.3 percent.

Over in the UK, there was some positive findings with the PC market totalling 3 million units in the first quarter of 2012. This was an increase of 2.4 percent compared with the equivalent period in 2011.

The desk-based segment showed the greatest increase, with a rise of 7.2 percent, which Gartner put down to a result of strong sales of the all-in-one form factor.