PC shipments worldwide slipped a bit in the fourth quarter of 2011, according to reports Wednesday from the International Data Corporation and Gartner.
The numbers from the two research firms vary by percentage points here and there, but both paint the same picture. In looking at the performance of individual PC makers, the major companies that rely most on the consumer market got hurt — Hewlett-Packard and Acer.
Apple, not surprisingly, is the exception. It does not rank in the top five PC makers by volume of machines sold worldwide, but in the United States, Apple is No. 3. IDC estimated Apple’s growth at 18 percent compared with the year-earlier quarter, while Gartner put the rate at 21 percent. Apple holds 11 percent of the American market.
H.P. remains the largest PC company in the world, with a 16 percent market share, according to both Gartner and IDC. But H.P.’s global shipments fell 16 percent in the fourth quarter. The company depends on the consumer market more than rivals like Lenovo and Dell, which sell mostly to businesses.
But H.P., analysts say, was also hurt by a self-inflicted wound. It was not until the end of October, they note, that it shelved earlier plans to consider spinning off or selling its PC business. “The uncertainty about the future of H.P.’s PC business depressed sales, especially with corporate customers,” Mikako Kitagawa, a Gartner analyst, said in an interview.
The No. 2 supplier, Lenovo, turned in a strong fourth quarter, posting a 37 percent surge in shipments, according to IDC. The No. 3 vendor, Dell, increased shipments more than 7 percent, while No. 4 Acer slipped by 8 percent, IDC estimated.
Besides a soft economy in the United States and a struggling one in Europe, consumer PC sales in those markets were also depressed by tablet computers and smartphones, which can do much of the computing tasks of desktop and notebook PCs.
Floods in Thailand, a large producer of disk drives, appeared to have a limited impact on sales by the major PC companies in the fourth quarter.
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