Worldwide PC shipments totaled 67.2 million units in the third quarter of 2018, a 0.1 percent increase from the third quarter of 2017, according to preliminary results by Gartner, Inc. The global market has shown modest stability for two consecutive quarters.
“The PC market continued to be driven by steady corporate PC demand, which was driven by Windows 10 PC hardware upgrades. We expect the Windows 10 upgrade cycle to continue through 2020 at which point the upgrade demand will diminish,” said Mikako Kitagawa , principal analyst at Gartner . “Despite the third quarter typically showing strong consumer PC sales due to the back-to-school season, weakness in consumer PC demand continued, offsetting the strong sales in the business market.”
EMEA, Asia/Pacific and Japan experienced growth in the third quarter of 2018, while the U.S. and Latin America declined. Latin America showed the steepest decline of 8.5 percent after showing some stabilization earlier in 2018.
PC shipments in EMEA reached 18.9 million units in the third quarter of 2018, a 1.1 percent increase year over year. Consumer PC demand overall continued to decline, while sales of business PCs remained the one thing sustaining the market. However, demand driven by Windows 10 upgrades in Western Europe is expected to slow going forward.
