Yet both the agree that Apple took third place in the USA market after gaining share, behind only HP and Dell, respectively.
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The worldwide Data Corp said its shipments fell 11% to just 71 million units, which was a bigger drop than had been expected during the third quarter, while Garthner a rival researcher showed that shipments were 73.7 million, which for them was down 7.7% from the same time a year ago. Up to Thursday’s close, the dollar had risen about 5.6% this year against a basket of major currencies.
Kitagawa added that the price increases impacted mostly PC sales in Europe, the Middle East, Japan and Latin America.
But things are looking up.
“We estimate Windows OEM revenues to be down 15% yoy in the September quarter”, he goes on, “based on PC units declining in the mid- to high-single-digit percentage range and the balance due to ASP declines given the mix shift to non-premium versions of Windows and FX”. The inventory buildup from the first half of 2015 started showing a few improvement during the third quarter.
“The currency squeeze is forcing PC vendors to increase their prices in order to remain profitable and, as result, it is suppressing purchases”, Gartner research director Ranjit Atwal said.
“This change in consumer preferences toward PCs was visible in the preliminary data, as we saw positive growth in U.S notebook and premium ultramobile shipments”, Kitagawa said.
By region, PC shipments in the US totaled 17.3 million units, which is slightly down year-over year. The USA software titan was likely to make promoting new Windows-powered computers a priority in the all-important year-end holiday shopping season.
Chou said: “The lackluster volume of PC shipments was consistent with expectations that the third quarter would face challenging financial conditions and be a transition period”. Last month NetMarketShare revealed that Windows 10 has 5.21 percent of the total desktop PC market share, meaning it is already ahead of Windows 8 (2.56 percent) and Mac OS X 10.10 (4.76 percent).
Windows 10 was the launched in the third quarter of 2015, though it had a minimal impact on the shipments in the quarter.
Acer was hurt the worst by the decline in PC sales. Over time, Chou reckons, “the improved PC experience across user segments should drive longer-term demand for new PC hardware that is expected help stabilize the market in 2016 and beyond”.
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This quarter has been particularly appalling for most companies owing to two key factors – the strengthening US dollar, which made the devices more expensive in many regions, and Microsoft’s (MSFT – Analyst Report) free upgrade program for Windows 10, which reduced the need to purchase new PCs.
