Top 3 Vendors Build Their Lead in Slumping PC Market

According to Gartner, worldwide PC shipments declined 8.6 percent in the third quarter of 2013, marking the sixth consecutive quarter of negative growth for the industry. There is a sliver of hope though, as the rate of decline is no longer in double digits.

The smaller-than-expected overall decline can mainly be attributed to the U.S. market, which accounts for roughly 20 percent of the global total. PC shipments in the United States grew 3.5 percent in the past quarter, while the industry suffered double-digit losses in EMEA and Asia-Pacific.

Remarkably, the Top 3 PC vendors, namely Lenovo, HP and Dell, significantly outperformed the rest of the industry. In contrast to the industry as a whole, all three of them saw modest improvements over last year's September quarter. This indicates that the PC industry might become more consolidated as smaller players shift their focus away from PCs towards other markets.