Global shipments of personal computers fell 7.1 percent in the first three months of the year, but the decline was smaller than expected and research group IDC on Wednesday said the industry could turn around by the end of the year.
A second research group, Gartner Inc., calculated first-quarter PC shipments fell 6.5 percent from the same period in 2008. The two groups use different methods to track PC shipments.
IDC had predicted worldwide shipments would fall 8.2 percent in the quarter. The U.S. market was also much stronger than IDC forecast, with PC shipments falling 3.1 percent from a year ago, compared with an expected 8.9 percent drop. By Gartner’s count, U.S. shipments dipped less than one percent.
“Based on the U.S. being the center of the financial crisis, and looking at trends of last recession, we were concerned that demand and growth would continue to decline,” said Loren Loverde, an IDC program director.
Instead, the U.S. PC market, which took a beating in the fourth quarter, benefited from intense price competition among PC makers as well as the growing demand for netbooks, or small, cheap, low-powered laptops.
Both groups reported that Hewlett-Packard Co. used the trend to overtake Dell Inc. as the top PC maker in the U.S. HP’s lower prices and more established brand among shoppers helped push its market share to 27.6 percent. Dell’s share fell to 26.3 percent as it struggled to reorganize its consumer business, according to IDC.
Taiwan’s Acer Inc., the No. 3 PC maker in the U.S. and a force in the netbook market, snagged 10.5 percent of the market. Apple Inc.’s share edged up to 7.6 percent, and Japan-based Toshiba Corp., the fifth-largest, took 6.6 percent.
Worldwide, HP’s market share crept up to 20.5 percent while Dell’s slipped a few points to 13.6 percent, IDC reported. HP’s shipments…