Worldwide PC shipments totaled 80.8 million units during the fourth quarter, declining by just 2.1% compared to the same quarter last year. Of all PCs, laptops accounted roughly 50-55% of all shipments, of which 4-6% were Chromebooks.
Microsoft is trying to battle Chrome OS through a series of low-cost laptops and desktops that run on Windows 8 with Bing, which is licensed at no cost to PC makers. The low-cost laptops have minimal storage and are mostly for people who don’t need heavy computing resources, and mostly use them to surf the Web, do social media and store files online.
It remains to be seen how Microsoft adapts Windows 10 to battle Chrome OS. Microsoft is expected to share more details about Windows 10 at a 21 January event on its Redmond, Washington, campus.
But no doubt, a strong end to 2014 has set the tone for a better PC market this year. Lenovo was the world’s top PC vendor during the fourth quarter last year, shipping 16.05 million units, up by 4.9% compared to the same quarter in 2013. HP came close to regaining the top spot it previously held, shipping 15.88 million units and growing by 15.1%. In third place was Dell, shipping 10.88 million units, an 8.5% increase. A rebounding Acer grew its shipments by 3.2% to reach 6.22 million units. Apple was the world’s fifth largest PC vendor during the quarter, shipping 5.75 million units, up by 18.9%. Asustek was bumped out of the top five list during the quarter.
Agam Shah, IDG News Service
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