Ugly PC Data from IDC. HP Shipments Down 24% and Dell Down 11%.
by Chuck Jones
IDC released its 2013 first quarter PC shipment estimates that are pretty brutal for four of the top five vendors; HP down 24% year over year, Dell down 11%, Acer down 31% and ASUS down 19%. In the U.S. Apple‘s shipments were down 7.5% year over year but given that there were manufacturing challenges and therefore inventory stockouts it is not surprising to see shipments down 7.5% year over year. In my model I have Mac sales up 2% year over year.
CJ Takeaway: This is just further confirmation that tablets are at least taking share and/or elongating replacement timeframes for PCs. It is also negative for Microsoft since it supplies the operating system for these machines. It does not appear that Windows 8 is helping to stop the bleeding. This is the fourth consecutive quarter of year over year declines and I suspect this trend will continue until the marker reaches a new equilibrium.
With HP’s operating margin at 2.7% in the most recent quarter compared to 5.4% nine months prior I believe HP’s PC operating margin will take another step downward.
U.S. Shipments for the March 2013 Quarter
Lenovo was the only vendor to not have its shipments decrease on a year over year basis.