Acer Inc (宏碁) and Asustek Computer Inc (華碩) retained their respective rankings as the fifth and sixth-largest global PC suppliers in the third quarter of this year, US market researcher Gartner Inc said.
While worldwide PC shipments for the July-to-September period rose about 1 percent from a year earlier, Asustek’s dropped 4.4 percent annually to 3.82 million units, with a global market share of 5.6 percent, a report issued by Gartner on Thursday showed.
However, Acer outperformed the global market, posting a gain of 3.3 percent, the report said.
Global PC shipments totaled 68.12 million units, up 1.1 percent from a year earlier, following a 1.5 percent increase in the second quarter.
The report cited Microsoft Corp’s Windows 10 refresh cycle as the primary driver for growth across all regions, although the level of impact differed according to local market conditions and the stage of the refresh cycle.
PC shipments in Japan last quarter surged 55 percent year-on-year, which in turn boosted global PC growth, Gartner senior principal research analyst Mikako Kitagawa said.
Global PC shipment growth was also aided by an easing of an Intel Corp CPU shortage and the US delaying tariffs on China-made mobile PCs to December, Kitagawa added.
Furthermore, alternative CPU vendors such as Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) and Qualcomm Inc effectively snapped up openings on the PC market during the Intel CPU shortage, the report said.
Qualcomm teamed up with Microsoft Corp to promote LTE-equipped PCs, while most major PC vendors released mobile PCs with built-in cellular antennas, Gartner said.
Furthermore, top PC vendors benefited from declining prices of components, such as DRAM and solid-state drives, over the past few quarters, it said.
As a result, China’s Lenovo Group Ltd (聯想) and the US’ HP Inc and Dell Inc strengthened their positions as the top three PC vendors, with improved profit margins.
Apple Inc ranked fourth, with shipments declining 3.7 percent year-on-year last quarter.
Another breakdown by market analyst firm International Data Corp (IDC) indicated that the impending US tariffs on Chinese-origin goods played a role in driving growth on the PC market.
“With higher tariffs on the horizon, PC makers once again began to push additional inventory during the quarter. Although the process was a bit more difficult, as many faced supply constraints from Intel, it left AMD with more room to grow,” IDC’s mobile device tracker research manager Jitesh Ubrani said.
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