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The FINANCIAL — According to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Workstation Tracker, certified mobile workstations continued to show stronger growth in the second quarter of 2015 (2Q15), while the desktop workstation market experienced a slight decline in growth. Total shipments of mobile workstations improved 5.4% year over year to 288,270 units in 2Q15. Worldwide desktop workstation shipments declined -3.7% year over year with total shipments of 641,580 units. Overall worldwide shipments improved slightly with a year-over-year decline of -1.0% compared to a year-over-year decline of -1.6% in the first quarter of 2015.

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Regional Highlights

For the first half of 2015, overall performance in the Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) region has not been impressive with two consecutive quarters of year-over-year decline. The poor performance can be attributed to disappointing growth in the larger markets in Western Europe, primarily France, Germany, and the Netherlands. Meanwhile, the developing countries in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) continued to show greater growth potential despite slower expansion this quarter. Overall, EMEA shipments declined -4.0% year over year to 283,759 units in 2Q15, giving the region a 30.5% share of the worldwide market, according to IDC.

The Americas region remained flat in 2Q15 with total shipments of 416,116 units. This follows a year-over-year decline of -1.0% in 1Q15. Shipments in Latin America declined -17.5% year over year after six consecutive quarters of strong growth. The United States, with 40.0% of worldwide market share, gained 5.0 and 1.4 share points sequentially and year over year, respectively. Canada had the steepest decline since the fourth quarter of 2013, with shipments falling -18.8% year over year.

The Asia/Pacific region (including Japan) accounted for 24.7% of the worldwide market in 2Q15. Excluding Japan, Asia/Pacific had the fastest year-over-year growth of any region at 11.5%, its seventh consecutive quarter of double-digit growth. China, with 40.1% of the regional market, continued its double-digit year-over-year growth while India’s gains slowed year-over-year. Japan, with 23.5% of the regional market, lost -9.8 and -7.3 points of market share sequentially and year over year, respectively.

“Despite the disappointing second quarter results, the market is expected to continue growing as high-end PC users and Apple Mac Pro users migrate to workstations,” said Ebenezer Obeng-Nyarkoh, Senior Research Analyst, Worldwide Trackers Group. “As IT professionals continue to increase demand for high performance computing, graphic capabilities, and greater reliability, ISV-certified workstations are expected to move into the computing mainstream.”

Vendor Highlights – Desktop Workstations

Surprisingly, cyclical growth improved for all major players of certified desktop workstations, which includes all-in-ones, blade, rack, and tower workstations. While Dell, Fujitsu, and NEC had notable year-over-year gains in 2Q15, all vendors saw their growth plummet compared to the previous quarter.

HP remained the leading vendor in the desktop workstation market accounting for 43.1% of the market, despite a decline of -9.3% year over year and -0.6% sequentially. This was HP’s fourth consecutive quarter of year-over-year decline and it ended the quarter with a net loss of -3.6 and -2.7 share points sequentially and year over year, respectively.

Dell remained the number 2 desktop workstation vendor gaining back shares after net loss of shares in the first quarter. Dell’s shipments fell -2.6% year over year in 2Q15, its third consecutive quarter of declining shipments. Dell accounted for 37.9% of the global market, with a net gain of 0.4 points of share compared to a year ago and 2.6 points sequentially.

Lenovo was the only vendor ending the quarter with positive growth and it continued to outperform the overall market with its seventh consecutive quarter of double-digit growth. With a year-over-year gain of 2.4 share point, Lenovo ended the quarter with 13.2% market share and maintained the number 3 spot.

Other vendors accounting for the remaining 5.8% share of the desktop market posted a net loss of -1.0 share points sequentially. Notable among the other vendors were the Japanese vendors Fujitsu and NEC, which together declined -4.6% year-over-year.