7 Key Findings From IDC's Q1 PC Shipment Stats

The Decline Continues

Worldwide PC shipments finished the first quarter just under 69 million units, a decline of nearly 7 percent compared to the same period a year ago, and the worst showing since 2009, according to the latest IDC Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker.

The market faced an uphill battle during the quarter, taking into consideration inventory of Windows Bing-based notebooks, a slowdown after the success of the XP refresh, and lax demand in several regions because of currency fluctuations or general economic weakness.

Click through these slides for a few takeaways on the PC market, including which vendors made the most of a weak quarter, and which regions of the world provided the most opportunity.

Looking For A Boost From Windows 10

Rajani Singh, senior research analyst, Personal Computing at IDC, said, "The upcoming launch of Windows 10 will consolidate the best of Windows 7 and Windows 8.1. In addition to the free upgrade for consumers for a year after the release, Windows 10 should be a net positive as there is pent-up demand for replacements of older PCs."

Shrinking U.S. Market

With shipments totaling 14.2 million PCs in the first quarter, the U.S. market shrank 1 percent from the same quarter a year ago. Growth was centered in portables, particularly around emerging product categories such as Chromebooks, Bing, ultraslims and convertibles. Desktop shipments were also relatively sluggish this quarter.

Lenovo Continues Growth Trend

With a 19.6 percent market share, Lenovo held onto the top position with 13.4 million units, and grew 3.4 percent. The Chinese vendor continued to aggressively court expansion outside of Asia, especially closing the gap with competition in EMEA. The company also moved ahead of Apple to capture the third position in the U.S.

HP Hangs Onto No. 2 Spot

With a 19 percent market share, HP remained No. 2, shipping nearly 13 million PCs with growth surpassing 3 percent, IDC said. The growth was driven primarily by resilient growth in the U.S. and EMEA.

Dell Declines

Dell shipped more than 9.2 million units, registering a year-over-year decline of 6.3 percent, according to IDC. This was its first negative quarter since the second quarter of 2013. The company saw strong results in the U.S. and EMEA in the first quarter of 2014, and that made comparisons with the first quarter of 2015 tough. Dell claimed a 13.5 percent market share during the quarter.

Acer Slows Despite Chrome Success

Even though Acer continued to see good results from its Chrome offerings, shipments slowed in the first quarter -- particularly in EMEA, where it had seen a strong rebound in mid-2014 but faced pressure from other market leaders in the fourth quarter, IDC said. Acer took a 7.1 percent market share in the quarter.

Asus Solid

With a 7 percent market share, Asus had a solid quarter with worldwide volume of 4.8 million and growth of 4.4 percent, supported by growth in Asia, IDC said.