UK PC shipments fall five per cent in Q1

PC shipments in the UK fell to three million in the first quarter

Shipments of PCs in the UK fell by 5.1 per cent to three million units in the first quarter of 2009, according to the latest figures from Gartner.

HP shifted the most units, retaining its number one position, but saw shipments fall during the quarter by 6.8 per cent, shaving its market share down to 22.2 per cent.
Second placed Dell fared the worst, logging a whopping 22 per cent sales decline, shipping about half as many units as HP during the quarter.

It was not all doom and gloom, however. Acer reported an impressive 43.4 per cent gain in notebook sales, according to Gartner, and closely followed Toshiba to gain fourth position.

Apple gained a spot in the UK top five for the first time, at the expense of Fujitsu Siemens, with a market share of just under five per cent.

Sales rose slightly across Europe to 15.3 million units, up 0.7 per cent against the same period in 2008. However, the enterprise business fell by some 20 per cent, and Gartner said that sales would have been worse were it not for the popularity of netbooks and small form factor notebooks.

"If it had not been for the mini notebooks, all of western Europe would have seen a bigger decline in shipments. This is a clear indication of the trend that we will see in other countries through 2010," said Ranjit Atwal, principal analyst at Gartner.

"The consumer market remained buoyant, driven by strong mini notebook demand, and numerous vendors increased their mini notebook shipments during the quar ter."

Gartner's research into the global PC market, released last month, found that worldwide PC shipments totalled 67.2 million in the first quarter of 2009, a 6.5 per cent fall against the same period last year. Again, HP sold the most but there were falling sales across the board.

"We are seeing some evidence of channel inventory restocking, particularly in the US," said George Shiffler, research director at Gartner. "This restocking should not be interpreted as a recovery in PC end-user demand. It is still unclear if the global PC market has hit the bottom."