Worldwide PC shipments totaled 67.2 million units in Q3/18, a 0.1% increase from Q3/17, according to preliminary results by Gartner. The global market has shown modest stability for two consecutive quarters.

Gartner said, “The PC market continued to be driven by steady corporate PC demand, which was driven by Windows 10 PC hardware upgrades. We expect the Windows 10 upgrade cycle to continue through 2020 at which point the upgrade demand will diminish”

EMEA, Asia/Pacific and Japan experienced growth in Q3/18, while the U.S. and Latin America declined. Latin America showed the steepest decline of 8.5% after showing some stabilization earlier in 2018. However, these results are in line with Gartner’s expectations in view of CPU supply constraints for the rest of the year.

Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner, said, “Despite the third quarter typically showing strong consumer PC sales due to the back-to-school season, weakness in consumer PC demand continued, offsetting the strong sales in the business market.

“Although the third-quarter results did not show any material impact, the Intel CPU shortage could influence the PC market moving forward with price increases and changes to the vendor landscape. While this shortage will have some short-term impacts, Gartner does not see any lasting impact on overall PC demand. Current expectation is that the shortage will continue into 2019, but Intel will prioritize the high-end CPU as well as the CPUs for business PCs. In the meantime, AMD will pick up the part of the market where Intel cannot supply CPUs.”

Lenovo secured the top spot in the worldwide PC market with growth of 10.7%, driven by regained traction in the commercial market and its joint venture with Fujitsu.

In the U.S. PC market, shipments declined 0.4% compared with the third quarter of 2017. While desktop shipments were flat, mobile PC shipments slightly declined compared with a year ago. The major driver of the market continued to be business PC demand.

HP continued to be the market leader in the U.S. with 30.7% of the market. Despite experiencing a decline of 0.8%, Dell remained in the No. 2 position. Dell may have been impacted by the weakness in mobile PC demand in the U.S. due to its specific target of the high-end consumer market, including gaming.