Global PC sales flat as consumers eye new gadgets

Worldwide sales of personal computers fell 0.1 percent in the second quarter of the year as consumers turned their attention to newer gadgets like tablets, a survey showed Wednesday. The quarterly report from research firm Gartner showed PC shipments, excluding tablet computers, totaled 87.5 million units in the second quarter of 2012, a small drop year-over year. "In the second quarter of 2012, the PC market suffered through its seventh consecutive quarter of flat to single-digit growth," said Mikako Kitagawa, analyst at Gartner. She said that despite high expectations for the thin and light notebook segment known as ultrabooks, this sector was small and had little impact on overall sales. "Consumers are less interested in spending on PCs as there are other technology products and services, such as the latest smartphones and media tablets that they are purchasing," she added. "This is more of a trend in the mature market as PCs are highly saturated in these markets." Hewlett-Packard continued to be the top PC seller with 14.9 percent market share even though its global shipments declined 12.1 percent. It was trailed closely by Lenovo at 14.7 percent, with Acer Group third, at 11 percent and Dell fourth at 10.7 percent. Gartner said in a statement that "Lenovo's aggressive expansion damaged its competitor's performance, namely HP and Dell, by taking shares from them." In the US market, HP was on top with a 25 percent market share, followed by Dell at 21.7 percent and Apple at 12 percent. A separate report last week by ABI Research said tablet computers are expected to overtake notebook PCs by 2016 as consumers shift to newer devices like the Apple iPad.