Lenovo, HP Control Q1 Global PC Sales

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 12, 1:04PM EST · Published Apr 12, 6:25AM EDT

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Lenovo, HP Control Q1 Global PC Sales — © Thinkstock

[cnxvideo id=”625483″ placement=”ros”]Global PC sales dropped 2.4% in the first quarter. Even though the market shrank, the laptop, smartphone and tablet businesses did not suffer the same damage as they have in many quarters in the past. Two companies controlled the market: Lenovo and HP Inc. (NYSE: HPQ). Each had market shares just shy of 20%.

Shipments for the quarter totaled 62.2 million units, according to research firm Gartner. It was the first time since 2007, at the start of the Great Recession, that the figure has been so low.

The primary reason the figure did not show a sharp drop is that businesses continued to be strong buyers. According to Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner:

While the consumer market will continue to shrink, maintaining a strong position in the business market will be critical to keep sustainable growth in the PC market. Winners in the business segment will ultimately be the survivors in this shrinking market. Vendors who do not have a strong presence in the business market will encounter major problems, and they will be forced to exit the PC market in the next five years. However, there will also be specialized niche players with purpose-built PCs, such as gaming PCs and ruggedized laptops.

HP and Lenovo do well in this segment of the market, as does third place Dell Technologies Inc. (NYSE: DVMT).

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Lenovo’s first place was not as good as it first appears because its growth was so modest compared to last year’s first quarter. It shipped 12.37 million units, up only 1.2%. Its primary rival, HP, posted growth of 6.5% over the same period to 12.18 million units.

Dell’s shipments grew 3.4% to 9.35 million. Once-hot Chinese manufacturer Asus showed a contraction in unit sales of 14% to 4.55 million. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) grew faster than the market at a rate of 4.5% to 4.21 million units.

U.S. shipments dropped at the same rate as those worldwide, as they fell 2.4% to 12.6 million units. HP had the best quarter by far. It was the number one vendor at 3.57 million units, which surged 15.9% from the first quarter of 2016. Second place Dell watched shipments fall 4.3% to 3.24 million units. Third place Lenovo suffered a drop of 3.6% to 1.72 million.

Table 1
Preliminary Worldwide PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for 1Q17 (Thousands of Units)

Company	1Q17 Shipments	1Q17 Market Share (%)	1Q16 Shipments	1Q16 Market Share (%)	1Q17-1Q16 Growth (%)
Lenovo	12,377	19.9	12,226	19.2	1.2
HP Inc.	12,118	19.5	11,383	17.9	6.5
Dell	9,351	15.0	9,040	14.2	3.4
Asus	4,547	7.3	5,287	8.3	-14.0
Apple	4,217	6.8	4,034	6.3	4.5
Acer Group	4,190	6.7	4,266	6.7	-1.8
Others	15,380	24.7	17,486	27.4	-12.0
Total	62,180	100.0	63,721	100.0	-2.4

Notes: Data includes desk-based PCs, notebook PCs and ultramobile premiums (such as Microsoft Surface), but not Chromebooks or iPads. All data is estimated based on a preliminary study. Final estimates will be subject to change. The statistics are based on shipments selling into channels. Numbers may not add up to totals shown due to rounding.

Source: Gartner (April 2017)

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.