Analysts at both Gartner and IDC reported the seventh straight quarter of declining PC shipments, although both firms saw a light at the end of the tunnel.
Of the top PC vendors, Lenovo widened its lead over HP and Dell on a worldwide basis during the fourth quarter of 2013, as the Chinese PC maker was one of the few to show positive growth.
The decline of the traditional PC has become almost an accepted fact, with Windows 8 an Windows 8.1 having failed to stem the tide of users rushing to tablets and phones. IDC reported that PC market slipped 5.6 percent to 82.2 million units, better than the 6.0 percent that the firm expected. Gartner said that the dip was 6.9 percent from a year ago, to 82.6 million units.
Still, both market-research firms at least spoke somewhat positively about the future. "Although PC shipments continued to decline in the worldwide market in the fourth quarter, we increasingly believe markets, such as the U.S., have bottomed out as the adjustment to the installed base slows," said Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner, in a statement. "Strong growth in tablets continued to negatively impact PC growth in emerging markets. In emerging markets, the first connected device for consumers is most likely a smartphone, and their first computing device is a tablet. As a result, the adoption of PCs in emerging markets will be slower as consumers skip PCs for tablets."
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