Gartner yesterday reported that Western European PC unit shipments fell by over 20% in the first quarter.
In vendor terms only Apple and Lenovo showed growth. Acer were down a staggering 37% followed by HP down 32%.
Of the three reported countries (France, Germany and the UK) France tumbled the most being down by over 25%. Germany was down 20.3% and the UK 16%.
Gartner comment “The first quarter of 2013 brought the worst quarterly decline in Western Europe since Gartner started tracking PC shipments in this region,”
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We previously mentioned that on a global basis tablets may overtake PCs in shipment terms next year.
It may have happened already in Europe!
Futuresource reported that quarter 4 2012 tablet shipments in Europe were 15.9 million and for the year 35.4 million.
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Whilst it’s apples and oranges the annual IDC reported global tablet shipments for 2012 were around 125 million so Europe could be about 28% of the global market.
IDC reported quarter 1 global tablet shipments as 49.2 million. So if Europe’s share was 28% this would be 13.8 million tablets which figure is some way ahead of Gartner’s reported PC shipment estimates of 12.3 million!
We shall see!
