• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, July 16, 2009

Worldwide shipments of personal computers dropped to 68.1 million units in the second quarter of 2009, a 5% decline from the second quarter of 2008, according to preliminary results from Gartner Inc., whose analysts nonetheless thought the PC market performed better than they had expected. In June, Gartner had forecast second quarter PC shipments to decline 9.8%.

"In the first quarter of 2009, inventory re-stocking played a major role in shipment growth, but this was less of a factor in the second quarter," stated Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner. "Though the market was still in decline, the better than expected results can be interpreted as a small sign of a PC market recovery in terms of shipment volumes in some regions. PC shipments in Asia/Pacific and the U.S. were better than our expectation, while shipments in the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region indicated on-ongoing weakness."

PC shipments in the U.S. totaled 16.4 million units in the second quarter of 2009, a decline of 1.2% from the second quarter of 2008. Those results also beat Gartner's expectation of a 12% year-over-year decline. Desk-based PCs continued to show a double-digit decline, while mobile PC shipments showed strength with an increase in the 20% range.

"Mini-notebooks aside, some vendors had very aggressive pricing of regular mobile PCs below $500 at U.S. retailers," Kitagawa noted. "Aggressive pricing determined the winners and losers for market share gains in the U.S. consumer market."