Lenovo Continues Market Dominance, Ships 13M PCs In Q1
Lenovo and HP continued to outpace the PC market in the first quarter even as industry-wide shipments dipped to their lowest overall level in six years.
The PC industry showed some strength in the second half of 2014, and the first quarter of 2015 just couldn't match that growth, according to the IDC Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker released Thursday.
Shipping 13.4 million units in the quarter, Lenovo continued to capitalize on its aggressive growth strategy outside of Asia, making strides in both the Europe, Middle East and Africa market and the U.S. market, and giving it a 19.6 percent market share.
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Lenovo's Q1 shipments were a 3.4 percent increase over those for the first quarter of 2014, and that was followed closely by HP, which shipped 13 million PCs in the quarter, good for 3 percent growth year-over-year and 19 percent market share.
Lenovo and HP outpaced the other top players in the PC market, and their results were in especially sharp contrast with Dell's.
Dell couldn't live up to the strong first quarter it posted a year ago, research firm IDC said. It shipped 9.2 million units from January through March, a 6.3 percent year-over-year dive. The quarter was the company's first negative period since the second quarter of 2013. The results were good for a 13.5 percent market share.
"We maintained momentum in our PC business in Q1, which was our ninth consecutive quarter of year-over-year share increase," Dell said in a statement. "Dell’s global share is now 13.5 percent as we enhanced our portfolio of PC solutions and also focused on profitable growth during the quarter. We plan to continue our strategy of investing in our end-user computing business throughout the year."
Lenovo Chairman and CEO Yang Yuanqing quickly seized upon the IDC report, saying the company maintained its leading position "by demonstrating outstanding innovation in the PC product line."
"Even as we continue to diversify and develop additional growth engines -- like mobile and enterprise -- we are fully committed to continuing to lead the way in PCs," Yuanqing said in a statement.
"PCs remain at the heart of our business, delivering 65 percent of our revenue and record pre-tax income last quarter of almost $500 million," Yuanqing said. "Given industry consolidation, Lenovo’s consistent focus on innovation and delivering award-winning PCs, and our ongoing momentum, we are confident that PCs will continue to be a great engine of strong, profitable growth.’
Consolidation was on IDC's mind, too. Pricing is a major driver of the PC market, and demand for expensive systems is tenuous, IDC said. Continued pricing pressure could make it difficult for some vendors to compete, fueling consolidation in the market.
Commercial sales slowed after last year's Windows XP refresh. Unfavorable economic conditions and the vagaries of currency fluctuation worldwide put a damper on the market, pushing shipments down to 69 million units, the lowest level since the first quarter of 2009, according to IDC.
In the U.S., PC shipments declined at a slower rate than in other regions, a trend that has been in place for nearly three years.
PUBLISHED APRIL 10, 2015