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PC shipments in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) reached 21.9 million units in the second quarter of 2014 – a 10.5 per cent rise year-on-year.
This marked a return to growth after seven quarters of consecutive decline, said analyst IDC.
As in the previous quarter, Western Europe drove most of the regional growth, with shipments supported by strong enterprise renewals, which led to an overall 25 per cent increase in the PC market. Consumer shipments also returned to growth after a severe contraction in 2013.
Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) remained impacted by the unstable political and economic situation in Russia and by currency fluctuations, and sales declined by 13.2 per cent. The Middle East and Africa (MEA) posted a modest 1.9 per cent increase in shipments.
In line with those trends, portable PC shipments in EMEA returned to growth (up 8.3 per cent), while desktop PC shipments increased 14.1 per cent.
"The increase in total EMEA shipments indicates a rebound in the market but not a recovery, as volumes remain below the 25 million unit mark of the peak periods in 2010 and 2012," said IDC in a statement.
"The clear improvements in EMEA are positive signs for PC manufacturers," said Chrystelle Labesque, research manager at IDC EMEA Personal Computing. "However, there was still a big difference between the subregions, and especially in the consumer segment the divide between mature and emerging markets is similar to the worldwide trend."
"The lack of investments in PC renewals during the past two years contributed to an aging installed base across the commercial market and, together with the end of Windows XP support, this generated large renewal needs," added Maciej Gornicki, senior research analyst, IDC EMEA Personal Computing.
In terms of vendors, HP topped the sales chart in EMEA during Q2 with 4.7 million PC shipments, and a 21.7 per cent share of the market, ahead of Lenovo (3.9m), Acer (2.5m), Dell (2.2m) and Asus (2m). Others recorded a total of 6.2m shipments.
