The personal computer industry shrunk in 2001 for the first time since 1985, with global shipments down 4.6 per cent, Gartner Dataquest has said in one of two reports on the sector by leading research firms.
Businesses were reluctant to buy PCs in the fourth quarter, while consumers turned out in slightly higher numbers than expected, taking the worldwide total to 128 million computers shipped for the year, Gartner said.
The US decline was steeper, with sales down 11.1 per cent to 43.8 million computers.
"Economic conditions combined with saturation issues in developed markets continue to impact PC market growth rates," said Mr Charles Smulders, a Gartner vice president.
Gartner forecast global sales would drop 4 per cent in the first quarter compared with a year earlier but would rise 4 per cent for the full year, 2002.
International Data Corp, Gartner's rival, had a brighter interpretation of the fourth quarter, the end of a year in which technology spending by consumers and businesses alike froze under the threat of economic slowdown.
IDC estimated fourth quarter shipments slipped 6.7 per cent compared to a year earlier, but the 16.9 per cent rise from the third quarter, to 34.2 million computers, was close to the usual seasonal increase of about 20 per cent, a sign things were returning to normal.
"Hard times persist in the PC market, but vendors are working diligently to stimulate growth and the outlook has started to improve in the United States and Europe," said Mr Loren Loverde, director of IDC's PC tracking unit.
Gartner said the September 11th attacks had led many buyers to postpone sales, artificially boosting fourth quarter figures by as much as 8 per cent in the United States.
Dell Computer was the only top-five vendor to increase shipments on a year-over-year basis both in the United States and globally, both research companies reported.
Dell took 27.5 per cent of the US market, up more than 5 percentage points, with 3 million computers shipped, compared with 2.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2000, IDC said.
Compaq Computer Corp was second with 12.7 per cent of the market, Hewlett-Packard third with 12.2 per cent, Gateway fourth with 6.3 per cent and IBM fifth with 5.2 per cent, it reported.
In terms of global market share, Dell was followed by Compaq, Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Fujitsu Siemens, it said.