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PC sales dip below 2009 levels, with Japanese sales off 44 per cent

Dell dives as Lenovo and HP pull away from the pack

68.5 million PCs trundled off the world's production lines in 2015's first quarter, the lowest number since 2009 according to box-watcher IDC.

The news isn't all bad: the analyst firm had previously predicted a lower number. But it's still a 6.7 per cent dip on last year's first quarter.

Newer PC designs are exciting punters, says the IDC's Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker, with Chromebooks, Bing laptops, two-in-one typoslabs and ultrabooks doing alright. But in Europe, “vendors focused on depleting attractively priced Bing inventory built up during 4Q 2014” and suffering as promotions on 15 inch BingBooks dry up.

Lenovo remains the world's number one PC vendor, growing by a strong 3.4 per cent. HP notched three per cent growth. But Dell was off 6.3 per cent to 9.2 million units.

One of the more interesting results in the tracker is that Japanese sales dropped 44 per cent, year over year. That's not necessarily a sign of collapsed demand, as IDC notes that consumers had unusual incentives to buy kit in Q1 2014 because a tax rise followed not long afterwards. With the Yen now weak, domestic Japanese PC prices have risen so punters are now reticent to replace their kit.

All of which translates as an ugly-looking market, just about everywhere and in most segments.

Peak PC's well behind us and Windows 10 looks like the next thing to give the market a jolt, but of course even Microsoft is putting its eggs into all sorts of devices/baskets with its summer release by making sure it (and apps) runs on PCs, fondleslabs, phones and all variants thereof. ®

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