PC Shipments Flatten Out After Two Years of Decline

After eight quarters of declining PC shipments, the PC industry has showed signs of improvement in the second quarter of 2014. For the first time since the first quarter of 2012, global PC shipments didn't decline compared to the previous year. While 0.1% growth can hardly be considered growth, it is definitely an encouraging sign that PC sales might stabilize around the current level.

As consumer demand continues to suffer from the rise of low-cost tablets, Gartner attributes the stabilization of the market mainly to business replacements cycles in developed markets. The end of Windows XP support also helped the market to turn the momentum and return to positive growth.

Meanwhile the market continues to consolidate, as the leading three vendors saw shipments improve substantially while smaller vendors continued to struggle.