Windows 7 End-Of-Life Drives PC Growth In Q3

HP, Dell and Lenovo all saw growth globally during the quarter, according to research firm Gartner.

With the Windows 7 end-of-life transition in its final stages, the three largest PC makers saw growth worldwide during the third quarter, according to research firm Gartner.

In the third quarter, expanded PC shipments at Lenovo, HP Inc. and Dell contributed to overall growth in global PC shipments of 1.1 percent compared with the same period a year ago, Gartner reported.

[Related: The Top 7 Things To Know About Windows 7 End-Of-Life]

The picture was more mixed in the U.S., with Dell gaining ground on PC sales but HP Inc. and Lenovo seeing a drop in shipments during the latest quarter, according to the firm.

U.S. PC shipments were down slightly during the quarter, declining 0.3 percent from the same quarter a year earlier.

Microsoft's end-of-support date for Windows 7 is set for Jan. 14, 2020. Businesses will still have the option to pay for extended Windows 7 security updates to postpone the move to Windows 10 PCs.

The Windows 10 shift "continued to be the primary driver for [PC] growth across all regions, although the magnitude of the impact varied according to local market conditions and the stage of the refresh cycle,” said Gartner analyst Mikako Kitagawa in a news release.

The U.S.-China trade war and Intel's CPU shortage did not have a major impact on third-quarter PC shipments, Kitagawa noted.

"The Intel CPU shortage has continued to ease, and U.S. tariffs on China-built mobile PCs had a minimal impact on PC shipments as the date for the potential increase in tariffs was pushed out to December 2019,” she said.

Meanwhile, the Intel CPU shortage "opened opportunities for alternative CPU vendors, namely AMD and Qualcomm, to reposition their processors in the PC market where Intel is dominant," Gartner said in the news release.

Shipments of Apple's macOS computers were down globally during the third quarter and essentially flat in the U.S., the firm reported.

Here are Gartner's U.S. PC shipments and market-share figures for the third quarter of 2019:

• HP Inc.: Shipments down 1.9 percent; market share of 29.6 percent (30.1 percent a year ago)
• Dell: Shipments up 3.2 percent; market share of 26.7 percent (25.8 percent a year ago)
• Lenovo: Shipments down 2.2 percent; market share of 15 percent (15.3 percent a year ago)
• Apple: Shipments up 0.2 percent; market share of 14.8 percent (14.7 percent a year ago)
• Microsoft: Shipments up 1.4 percent; market share of 4.1 percent (4 percent a year ago)
• Acer: Shipments up 15.5 percent; market share of 3.2 percent (2.7 percent a year ago)

And here are Gartner's global PC shipments and market-share figures for the quarter:

• Lenovo: Shipments up 5.8 percent; market share of 24.7 percent (23.6 percent a year ago)
• HP Inc.: Shipments up 4.6 percent; market share of 22.4 percent (21.7 percent a year ago)
• Dell: Shipments up 5.5 percent; market share of 16.6 percent (15.9 percent a year ago)
• Apple: Shipments down 3.7 percent; market share of 7.5 percent (7.9 percent a year ago)
• Acer: Shipments up 3.3 percent; market share of 6.2 percent (6 percent a year ago)
• Asus: Shipments down 4.4 percent; market share of 5.6 percent (5.9 percent a year ago)