PC shipments up 3.2%

The Wall Street Journal reports.

Market researcher, Gartner said shipments of PCs around the world climbed 3.2% to 91.8 million units in the third quarter, well below its earlier projection of 5.1% growth. A similar survey by International Data, another market research company, pegged the industry's growth rate in the quarter at 3.6%, lower than an earlier projection of 4.5% growth.

According to CBR, the report said the Asia Pacific markets were slightly ahead of expectations, while the Americas and EMEA were slightly below.

The market continues to struggle as consumer discretionary income is diverted to other areas, and business-spending remains depressed in light of other priorities and a potential double-dip recession, the IDC said.

"The inventory build-up, which slowed growth the last four quarters, mostly cleared out during the third quarter of this year; however, the PC industry has been performing below normal seasonality," Hot Hardware quotes Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner, as saying.

"As expected, back-to-school PC sales were disappointing in mature markets, confirming that the consumer PC market continues to be weak. The popularity of non-PC devices, including media tablets, such as the iPad and smartphones, took consumers' spending away from PCs."