Worldwide PC shipments totaled 92.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2011, down 0.2 percent from a year earlier due to shortages in hard disc drives, the weak economic climate and competition from other devices such as tablets, IDC reported. Over the full year 2011, PC shipments (including notebooks) grew 1.6 percent to 352.4 million. IDC expects the market to slow further in the first quarter of 2012 as the full impact of the HDD shortage is felt, and then recover to over 15 percent growth by the fourth quarter. Annual 2012 shipments are forecast at 371 million, an increase of 5.4 percent, followed by annual growth of over 11 percent in 2013. In terms of vendors, HP remained market leader in Q4 2011 with a 16.3 percent share, despite seeing its shipments fall 16 percent from a year earlier. Lenovo grew its share to 14.0 percent from 10.3 a year earlier, and Dell edged up to 12.9 percent from 12.0 in Q4 2010. Acer lost almost one point to 10.6 percent of shipments, and Asus grew to 6.7 percent.
