14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has become more committed to hardware, and the recent October 2 Surface event showed that the company is very keen on expanding its product portfolio as much as possible.
And new data published by analyst firm Gartner shows that all these efforts are paying off, as the Surface brand is growing and is now fifth in terms of US sales, just after fourth-placed Apple.
Gartner says global PC shipments increased just 0.1 percent in the third quarter of 2018 to reach 67.2 million units, with demand remaining steady mostly thanks to Windows 10.
“The PC market continued to be driven by steady corporate PC demand, which was driven by Windows 10 PC hardware upgrades. We expect the Windows 10 upgrade cycle to continue through 2020 at which point the upgrade demand will diminish,” said Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner.
“Despite the third quarter typically showing strong consumer PC sales due to the back-to-school season, weakness in consumer PC demand continued, offsetting the strong sales in the business market.”
Microsoft vs. Apple in the US
Lenovo is the top PC maker worldwide with a 23.6 percent share and 15.8 million sold units, followed by HP with a 21.8 percent share and 14.6 million sold units. Dell and Apple are next, though the latter has experienced an 8.5 percent decline from the previous year with just 4.9 million sold units.
In the United States alone, Microsoft finally makes the top five thanks to its Surface lineup, as the brand has reached 602,000 sold units in the last quarter. Gartner says this is a 1.9 percent share increase over the same quarter the year before.
Apple is fourth in the charts with 2 million sold units but a 7.6 percent drop year-over-year. Microsoft now owns 4.1 percent of the market, whereas Apple holds a 13.7 percent share.
Most likely, Microsoft’s Surface sales would increase in the current quarter thanks to the debut of new models like the Surface Studio 2, Surface Laptop 2, and Surface Pro 6.
