PC shipments in Western Europe declined 2.4% during the second quarter of 2012 to 13.6 million units compared to 13.98 million units shipped during the corresponding period in 2011, according to a new report.
During the quarter, mobile PC shipments grew 4%, desk-based PC shipments declined 12.8%, and professional PC shipment dropped 5.3%, while the consumer PC market grew 0.4%.
Gartner principal analyst Meike Escherich said, "Although we saw a slight uptake in mobile PC sales, the Western Europe PC market recorded weak overall PC shipments across all countries."
Among the vendors, HP retained the No. 1 position in the Western Europe PC market despite losing market share.
HP shipped 2.7 million unit during the quarter compared to 3.1 million units it shipped during the corresponding quarter, while its market share dipped from 22.7% in Q2 of 2011 to 20.2% in Q2 of 2012.
After having resolved its inventory issues Acer registered strong performance helping the company regain its No. 2 position.
Asus has registered best performance among the top five vendors and moved up to No. 3 with 42.8% growth in shipment during the quarter to 1.4 million units compared to 1 million units it shipped during Q2 of 2011.
"Asus excelled at diversifying its product portfolio, which includes mobile PCs and desk-based PCs, and it is now expanding into Ultrabooks and tablets, all of which are marketed at attractive prices," Escherich said.
"Consumer spending on PCs has been stalled by the ongoing economic uncertainty. If demand, especially from consumers, remains weak there might be some old stock left in the channels ahead of the Windows 8 launch in October."
"This could lead to significant price cuts in September, and challenges may arise in selling new products into the channel in the third quarter of 2012."
In UK and Germany PC markets declined while France PC market returned to weak growth during the second quarter of 2012, the report revealed.
UK PC shipments declined 7.6% during Q2 to 2.5 million units compared to 2.7 million units shipped during Q2 of 2011.
Collectively, the top three PC vendors lost more than four percentage points of market share, with all three showing double-digit-percentage declines in shipments.
Gartner research director Ranjit Atwal said the UK PC market remained very weak in the second quarter of 2012.
"It was depressed across the board, with both the consumer and professional sectors exhibiting decline," Atwal said.
"The real worry for the U.K. PC market is whether it will ever return to solid growth. "
"Windows 8 and Ultrabooks now look even more important. However, messages emerging from the PC supply chain remain inconsistent and largely uninspiring. This has resulted in the PC channel holding back on new shipment orders until the fourth quarter of 2012."
In France, PC shipments increased 0.7% to 2.48 million units in the second quarter of 2012, compared to 2.47 million units during corresponding quarter last year.
The consumer PC market increased 12%, while the professional PC market declined 12% and during the quarter mobile PC market accounted for 66% of total PC shipments in France.
PC shipments in Germany dropped 6.5% to 2.56 million units in the second quarter of 2012, compared to 2.74 million units shipped in Q2 of 2011.
