PC Sales Drop Dramatically in the U.S.

Gartner pegged global PC shipments at 87.5 million units for a 0.1 percent year over year decline, a figure echoed by IDC. The biggest drag on global shipments from a geographical perspective was the U.S.

According to Gartner, U.S PC shipments came in at 15.9 million units, for a 5.7 percent year over year decline. IDC paints a bleaker picture of the U.S. market with PC shipments down by 10.6 percent.

“The U.S. market suffered a double-digit contraction in the second quarter as market saturation and economic factors combine with anticipation of Windows 8 and other changes later in the year,” ” said David Daoud, research director, Personal Computing at IDC, in a statement. “In this context, consumers are delaying purchases, and vendors and retailers are slowing down their PC activities to clear existing inventories.”

In contrast with the U.S., other regions of the world are seeing growing volumes of PC shipments. Gartner reported that in EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) shipments grew by 1.9 percent to 25.1 million units. In Asia Pacific shipments hit 31.8 million units for a 2 percent annual growth rate.

Read the full story at Datamation:
Global PC Shipments Fall Flat

Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of the IT Business Edge Network, the network for technology professionals Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.