Worldwide PC shipments fell in first quarter

PC makers shipped a total of 66.5 million units globally for the first three months of the year, a decrease of 8.1 percent from the 72.3 million units during the same period in a year earlier, according to market researcher iSuppli.

“The worldwide recession sparked by the credit crisis slammed PC shipments for the second quarter in succession during the first three months of 2009,” said Matthew Wilkins, principal analyst for computer platforms research at iSuppli.

According to Gartner estimates, worldwide shipments declined 7.1 percent in the first quarter to 63.5 million units. While in U.S. shipments fall 3.1 percent.

“We are seeing some evidence of channel inventory restocking, particularly in the U.S.,” said George Shiffler, research director at Gartner. “This restocking should not be interpreted as a recovery in PC end-user demand; it’s still unclear if the global PC market has hit the bottom.”

Meanwhile, Hewlett-Packard remained the No.-1 PC OEM with 19.7 percent marketshare, Dell was No.2 at 13.2 percent with 8.8 million units sold.

It followed by Asian PC OEMs, Acer, Lenovo and Toshiba, which had market shares of 11.1, 6.7, and 5.2 percent, respectively.

However, notebook shipments grew 10 percent, iSuppli said, and expects netbooks would increase 14 percent in worldwide 2009 PC shipments.