Brian Gammage, an analyst with Gartner Dataquest's Computing Platform group said:
"... Many of the leading international vendors have seen shipments decline, some by a significant degree, and only those who are executing against a clear strategy are seeing shipment levels increase. However, in a market where prices, margins and volumes are all declining, it is far from certain that the winners are those who are gaining market share."
According to the report, Dell saw the highest rate of shipment increase, continuing to eat into Compaq's market lead and Hewlett-Packard also saw double-digit growth, whilst IBM saw shipments grow at a more modest rate.
The two largest country markets, Germany and the United Kingdom, recorded declines of 11.9% and 7.3%, respectively. Shipments in France, the third-largest market, grew by 7.8%, mainly because of a strong professional segment and high-volume employee purchase schemes.