China steals top spot as world's largest PC market

China surpassed the United States as the world’s largest PC market during the second quarter of 2011 according to a new report from IDC. PC shipments in China totaled 18.5 million units during the second quarter, more than the 17.7 million units shipped in the United States. The research firm is projecting that Chinese PC shipments will total 85.1 million units next year, compared to just 76.6 million units shipped in the U.S. The influx of new tablet devices and advanced smartphones, such as Apple’s iPhone and iPad, may be driving consumer interest away from notebooks and traditional desktop PCs in developed markets, The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday. “The center of gravity of the PC industry has shifted away from the developed world,” Wolf Group Asia CEO David Wolf said. China’s growth helped Lenovo become the third-largest PC maker, behind HP and Dell, with a 12.2% of global PC shipments. HP’s share of the Chinese market dropped from a 16.6% during the third quarter of 2009 to 8.5% during the second quarter of 2011. The decline has been partially blamed on buggy NVIDIA chips that shipped in HP devices last year. HP recently announced that it is considering a partial or full separation from its personal systems group.