By Graham K. Rogers

Once again, sales of PCs are reported to be low. Figures taken from the Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker from International Data Corporation (IDC) - as reported on Business Wire - suggest that the industry has had another poor quarter with total worldwide sales of 66.1 million units. The report lists some of the probable reasons, including inventory reductions ahead of Windows 10; and a strong dollar. In the short term, sales are expected to continue this decline but pick up some time in an unspecified future.

Comments on vendors show that all, apart from Apple, had negative sales growth. The IDC ranking shows

1. Lenovo - 13.4 million with volume up 1% from the previous year;
2. HP - 10% decline worldwide (7% USA);
3. Dell - 9.5 million shipped with a decline of 8.7%
4. Apple - Growth of 16.1% worldwide;
5. Acer - Despite growth in sales of Chromebooks, Acer saw a "significant decline" with volume of 4.33 million;
6. ASUS sae some growth in the USA but saw problems due to currency and inventory management (shipments of 4.33 million)

PC Sales - Source IDC iCharts

In an item on Seeking Alpha that also examines these figures, Eric Jhonsa includes a small section focussing on Apple and the Mac. It compares the IDC report with figures from Gartner which does not have Apple in its top-5. In addition, "IDC and Gartner respectively assign Apple 13.5% and 12.7% U.S. shares." He also notes that in the past IDC has often cited figures different to those Apple eventually reported in its financial statements.

The next report from Apple (Q32015) is to be announced in just over a week on 21 July at 14:00 Pacific Time (17:00 ET). There will be an audio webcast.

Graham K. Rogers teaches at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University in Thailand where he is also Assistant Dean. He wrote in the Bangkok Post, Database supplement on IT subjects. For the last seven years of Database he wrote a column on Apple and Macs. He is now continuing that in the Bangkok Post supplement, Life.