PC Makers Hammered By CPU Shortages In Q1 2019

U.S. PC sales dropped 6.3 percent, with all major vendors seeing their shipments slide amid Intel’s processor shortage.

U.S. PC sales dropped 6.3 percent during the first quarter of 2019 as vendors were hit hard by processor shortages, according to research firm Gartner.

Shipments of PCs in the U.S. fell for all five of the top vendors—HP Inc., Dell, Lenovo, Apple and Microsoft--during the first three months of the year, Gartner said.

[Related: Lenovo And Dell Seeing PC Growth In U.S., But CPU Shortage Takes A Toll On Overall Market]

Market share results remained largely static year-over-year, with small share gains by HP, Apple and Microsoft and minor drops for Dell and Lenovo, Gartner reported.

"We saw the start of a rebound in PC shipments in mid-2018, but anticipation of a disruption by CPU shortages impacted all PC markets as vendors allocated to the higher-margin business and Chromebook segment," said Gartner analyst Mikako Kitagawa in a news release.

Intel's CPU shortage has been impacting PC shipments since at least September, and leading vendors have begun "sourcing alternative CPUs from AMD," Kitagawa said.

Lenovo saw the largest drop, of 7.5 percent, in U.S. PC shipments during the first quarter, while Dell fell 7.1 percent, Gartner reported. U.S. PC sales fell 4.7 percent for HP Inc., 3.5 percent for Apple and 2 percent for Microsoft.

Here are Gartner's U.S. PC market-share figures for the first quarter of 2019:

• HP Inc.: Market share of 29.4 percent, up from 28.9 percent a year earlier
• Dell: Market share of 28.7 percent, down from 28.9 percent a year earlier
• Lenovo: Market share of 13.6 percent, down from 13.7 percent a year earlier
• Apple: Market share of 13 percent, up from 12.6 percent a year earlier
• Microsoft: Market share of 4.1 percent, up from 3.9 percent a year earlier

Globally, the rankings differed during the first quarter, with Lenovo retaining the top spot—with 22.5 percent market share—followed by HP Inc. (21.9 percent), Dell (17.6 percent) and Apple (6.8 percent). Shipments fell 4.6 percent globally during Q1, Gartner reported.