ET BureauBENGALURU: Worldwide personal computer shipments witnessed a sharp decline in the second quarter of 2016, marking the seventh consecutive quarterly fall in PC shipments as price hikes in certain regions across the world kept consumers away, amid currency fluctuations.
According to technology researcher Gartner, worldwide PC shipments totaled 64.3 million units in the April-June quarter, down 5.2% from the year-ago period.
"One of the ongoing problems in the PC market has been the price hike in selected regions due to the weakening local currency against the U.S. dollar," said Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner. "The price issue has impacted the EMEA and Latin America regions for the past year. However, PC shipment declines became rather modest in the second quarter compared with previous quarters, which suggests a fading currency impact..”
"All regions except North America experienced a PC shipment decline. The Latin America region was still very weak largely because of political and economic instability. PC shipments in Latin America are expected to fall below 5 million units for the second quarter of 2016, which is a decline of more than 20 percent from the second quarter,” added Kitagawa.
Gartner added that PC shipments could be further impacted in the near future, due to fallout from Brexit, which could potentially create uncertainty not only in currency but also across economies in and outside Europe.
Among PC vendors, Lenovo retained its pole position, despite being hurt by a 2.2% drop in unit shipments from the same period last year. This also marked the fifth consecutive quarter of shipment declines for the Chinese PC giant.
According to technology researcher Gartner, worldwide PC shipments totaled 64.3 million units in the April-June quarter, down 5.2% from the year-ago period.
The fall in PC shipments also comes amid a large-scale shift across the technology landscape as a generation of data-hungry consumers increasingly start shifting away from traditional computing devices to smartphones and tablets -- a trend that has been growing stronger over the past decade with the emergence of smartphones such as Apple’s flagship iPhone.
"One of the ongoing problems in the PC market has been the price hike in selected regions due to the weakening local currency against the U.S. dollar," said Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner. "The price issue has impacted the EMEA and Latin America regions for the past year. However, PC shipment declines became rather modest in the second quarter compared with previous quarters, which suggests a fading currency impact..”
"All regions except North America experienced a PC shipment decline. The Latin America region was still very weak largely because of political and economic instability. PC shipments in Latin America are expected to fall below 5 million units for the second quarter of 2016, which is a decline of more than 20 percent from the second quarter,” added Kitagawa.
Gartner added that PC shipments could be further impacted in the near future, due to fallout from Brexit, which could potentially create uncertainty not only in currency but also across economies in and outside Europe.
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Among PC vendors, Lenovo retained its pole position, despite being hurt by a 2.2% drop in unit shipments from the same period last year. This also marked the fifth consecutive quarter of shipment declines for the Chinese PC giant.
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