Preliminary results by market research company Gartner show that though worldwide PC shipments grew at 2.3%, it is lower than Gartner’s earlier projection of 6.7%.

Worldwide PC shipments surpassed 85.2 million units in the second quarter of 2011, said Gartner.

Gartner principal analyst Mikako Kitagawa said after strong growth in shipments of consumer PCs for four years, driven by strong demand for mini-notebooks and low-priced consumer notebooks, the market is shifting to modest, but steady growth.

"The slow overall growth indicates that the PC market is still in a period of adjustment, which began in the second half of 2010," Kitagawa said.

"Vendor’s performances have become variable as they have had to deal with significant inventory buildup, changes to their product mix, and the fact that growth has been coming mostly from emerging markets. Vendors are having to shift resources away from mature consumer markets. They are also invested in developing media tablets, many of which launched in the first half of 2011."

HP retained its position at the top with 17.5% of worldwide PC shipments in the second quarter of 2011.

Dell, with improved sales in the Asia-Pacific region, upstaged Acer from second place in the worldwide PC market. Dell reached the second place for the first time since the fourth quarter of 2008.

However, it was Lenovo that experienced the strongest growth among the top-tier vendors.

The Hong Kong- based company increased its PC shipments 22.5%, with strong growth in Asia-Pacific, the US and Latin America with both desktop and mobile PCs.

Among the losers was Acer, which dropped from No. 2 to the No. 4 position. Gartner said that Acer’s problems stemmed from its low-price, high-volume business model, which is no longer effective.

"Given the hype around media tablets such as the iPad, retailers were very conservative in placing orders for PCs. Instead, they wanted to secure space for media tablets. Some PC vendors had to lower their inventory through promotions, while others slimmed their product lines at retailers," Kitagawa said.

"The professional PC sector was the bright spot in the US market.

"Large organisations were in the middle of their refreshment purchase period, which started last year. Small and midsize businesses (SMBs) were also at the peak of their refreshment periods. Due to budgetary constraints, the public sector had a slow start in the second quarter of 2011, even though the second quarter is typically a period of high PC sales."

In the US, it was Apple which surged from fifth place to third, overtaking Acer and Toshiba in the quarter.

However, PC shipments in EMEA totalled 23.1 million units in the second quarter of 2011, a 4.8% decline from the second quarter of 2010.

Gartner research director Ranjit Atwal said, "For the second consecutive quarter the PC market in EMEA showed decline."

"The PC market in the region remained weak due to slow consumer demand and lower sell-in with PC shipments. In addition, high inventory adjustments by Acer worsened the downside view of the market.

"There is no doubt that the continued weak consumer demand within Western Europe and economic issues in Southern Europe had some impact on consumer confidence across Western Europe," said Atwal.

"The feedback from retail channels remained pessimistic, especially in most of Southern Europe, with only France and Germany reporting stronger end-of-quarter shipments as channels cleaned out inventory." Overall growth in the Central and Eastern Europe and the Middle East and Africa markets could not compensate for the weak shipments in Western Europe.

In Asia-Pacific, PC shipments reached 30.5 million units in the second quarter of 2011, a 9.6% increase from the same period last year. China’s PC market grew 10.9% year-on-year.

The PC market in Latin America grew 15% in the second quarter of 2011, as shipments totalled 9.2 million units.

In Japan, PC shipments grew 5.5% in the second quarter of 2011, with shipments reaching 3.9 million units.