PC market finally returned to growth during second quarter, ending eight consecutive quarters of falls

After two solid years of declines, the global PC market appears as though it might have finally bottomed out, according to figures released by Gartner yesterday.

The figures, covering worldwide shipments during the second quarter of 2014, show that overall PC shipments for the second quarter of 2014 reached 75.763 million units worldwide.

This is a slight increase of 0.1% from the same quarter last year, when 75.7 million units were shipped.

The news will lead to a sigh of relief from the PC industry, which chalked up eight consecutive quarters of year-on-year shipment declines during the first quarter of this year. 

Shipment volumes grew for most major vendors during the quarter, with year-on-year growth for Lenovo (12.6m to 14.5m), HP (12.2m to 13.4 m), Dell (8.9m to 10m), and Asus (4.6 m to 5.2 m).

Microsoft ending support for Windows XP on April 8 might have been a contributing factor in users choosing to upgrade their PCs.