Q2 2019 has been a surprisingly good quarter for traditional PC manufacturers as PC shipments have seen growth Year-over-Year. Gartner puts the growth at 1.5% and shipments at 63 million units in the second quarter of 2019, up from 62 million units in the second quarter of 2018.
IDC has reported that the global traditional PC market, inclusive of desktops, notebooks, and workstations, totaled 64.9 million units in Q2 2019 clocking a Year-over-year growth of 4.7%.
While analyzing to find the growth drivers, Gartner identifies Windows 10 Refresh as the driving force behind this growth.
“Worldwide PC shipments growth was driven by demand from the Windows 10 refresh in the business market in the second quarter of 2019. Desktop PC growth was strong, which offset a decline in mobile PC shipments,” said Mikako Kitagawa, senior principal analyst at Gartner.
As per the report from Gartner the top three vendors — Lenovo, HP Inc., and Dell — accounted for 64.1% of global PC shipments. Check the PC shipments table from Gartner below.
IDC identified the easing of supply shortages, US-China trade tension and Windows 7 to Windows 10 migration as the driving forces behind the PC shipments growth.
“Supply for Intel’s processors improved markedly during the quarter, allowing most PC vendors to fulfill old orders while also shipping a healthy supply of new PCs into the channels,” said Jitesh Ubrani, research manager for IDC’s Mobile Device Trackers. “Additionally, the threat of increased tariffs led some PC makers to ship a surplus of desktops and notebooks, thereby artificially propping up the PC market during the second quarter.”
However, higher than anticipated growth was not driven solely by changes in the supply chain. “With the January 2020 end of service (EOS) date for Windows 7 approaching, the market has entered the last leg of the Windows 7 to Windows 10 commercial migrations,” noted Linn Huang, research vice president, Devices & Displays.
IDC report also posted region wise and vendor wise highlights. US, Canada, Japan, APAC and even European markets registered growth in PC shipments in the quarter. The report identifies Lenovo, HP Inc., and Dell as three top manufactures just like Gartner’s report. 
