Lenovo was No. 1 in global PC shipments in the third quarter.
Sarah Tew/CNET
The global PC market may be stabilizing.
PC makers shipped 67.2 million units in the third quarter of 2018, a 0.1 percent increase from the same period last year, according to preliminary numbers released Wednesday by Gartner, a market research firm. The flat overall number comes after a second quarter in which shipments posted a modest increase of 1.4 percent, the first up quarter in six years.
While demand from consumers remained weak, strong business sales buoyed the overall market.
“The PC market continued to be driven by steady corporate PC demand, which was driven by Windows 10 PC hardware upgrades,” Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner, said in a statement. “We expect the Windows 10 upgrade cycle to continue through 2020 at which point the upgrade demand will diminish.”
Lenovo held on to its crown with a market share of 23.6 percent, up from 21.4 percent in the same quarter a year earlier. HP was No. 2 with 21.8 percent, followed by Dell with 16 percent of the market.
While the top three managed to expand their market share, Apple and Acer saw declines in their shares of the PC market. Apple grabbed the No. 4 position with 7.3 percent, while No. 5 Acer took in 6.1 percent.
Shipment figures for the third quarter:
Gartner
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