Chinese firm Lenovo has overtaken Acer in the volume of EMEA PC sales made by quarter, to become the second biggest PC maker in the region, behind HP.
According to figures for the fourth quarter of 2012 from analysts IDC, a sustained weakness in consumer demand and budget constraints in the commercial area led to a 10.7 per cent decline in overall PC shipments in EMEA compared to the same quarter last year.
PC sales fall six per cent in fourth quarter – first fall since global financial crisis HP overtaken as world's biggest PC vendor by Lenovo All-in-one Windows 8 PCs selling 'well above forecasts' - Dell Intel profits slump as PC sales decline PC still the dominant device for web and work, says Deloitte
But Lenovo bucked the trend, as it recorded a strong quarter in which it reached an 11.1 per cent share in EMEA, compared to a 7.9 per cent share in the same quarter of 2011.
It was also the only PC maker in the top five to make more shipments in the fourth quarter of 2012 (3,069 shipments) than in the same quarter in 2011 (2,444 shipments).
Last week, IDC said that HP remained the world's biggest PC vendor and that Lenovo had increased sales by 8.2 per cent but remained second globally. It said HP had a global market share of 16.7 per cent, with Lenovo at 15.7 per cent.
IDC stated that HP had the top spot in the third quarter of 2012 but this was disputed by analyst group Gartner, who claimed that Lenovo had edged ahead with a market share of 15.7 per cent compared to HP's 15.5 per cent. According to Gartner, it was the first time that HP had lost market leadership in six years.
Lenovo's success has been in part thanks to aggressive pricing, which has left it with razor thin margins.
"In addition to acquiring other vendors, Lenovo has also taken an aggressive position on pricing, especially in the professional market," Gartner said in a statement at the time.
Of the other PC makers in IDC's fourth quarter report, Acer slipped to third place in EMEA, it was followed by Asus and Dell. Samsung was sixth, with Toshiba seventh.
IDC said Apple suffered from supply constraints in all-in-one desktops which impacted desktop sales, while Sony and Fujitsu recorded slow quarters with declines of more than 15 per cent in sales.
The analyst firm said last week that PC sales had declined for the first time in five years in the fourth quarter of 2012. This was despite the October release of Windows 8 which was supposed to have stimulated a spike in PC and laptop sales.
"High price points remained a major inhibitor for a larger volume uptake [of Windows 8 devices] whilst display supply shortage also contributed to constrain shipment levels," IDC explained.
