Gartner points to UK PC shipments slump

PC shipments in the UK fell by 20% year on year in the first quarter of 2013, with Lenovo the only manufacturer to achieve a significant increase, according to figures from IT analyst house Gartner.

The total, which includes desktop PCs and laptops, fell from 15.48 million units in the first quarter of 2012 to 12.31 million in the most recent quarter, reflecting the worldwide decline in PC sales previously reported by Gartner.

It attributes the fall to PCs losing out to mobile devices as consumers decided where to spend their money.

Lenovo managed to buck the trend with a 7.2% increase in shipments to 1.43 million, climbing from fourth to third in the table of suppliers with 8.6% of the market. Gartner says this was due to a strong performance in supplying the business market, while it lost ground with the others in consumer sales.

HP lead

HP stayed top with 2.42 million, followed by Acer with 1.44 million, but suffered year-on-year declines of more than 30%. Dell was fourth with 1.43 million. Apple managed a marginal increase from 964,000 to 972,000.

The figures show the UK is subject to the same forces that have caused a worldwide decline in PC shipments. Gartner has already identified an 11% global decline for the first quarter, with a total of 79.21 million units shipped.