New Delhi, Jul 13 (IANS): The global PC shipments reached 71.6 million units in the second quarter of 2021, an increase of 4.6 per cent from the second quarter last year, a new Gartner report said on Tuesday.

While PC demand remained above the pre-pandemic levels, this was a marked deceleration in growth compared to the record (year over year) growth of 35.7 per cent in the first quarter of 2021, due in part to the impact of ongoing component shortages, according to preliminary results by market research firm Gartner.

"The global semiconductor shortage and subsequent component supply constraints have extended lead time for some enterprise mobile PC models to as long as 120 days," said Mikako Kitagawa, research director at Gartner.

"This has led to prices increasing in the bill of materials, which vendors have passed on to end users. Moving forward, rising prices could continue to slow PC demand through the next 6 to 12 months," Kitagawa added.

Chromebook shipments were once again strong in the second quarter of 2021. The total combined worldwide PC/Chromebook market grew over 10 per cent year over year.

The top three vendors in the worldwide PC market remained unchanged year over year, with Lenovo maintaining the top spot in shipments.

Lenovo recorded its fifth straight quarter of year over year growth, although its 3.6 per cent growth trailed that of the overall PC market.

After a major rebound in shipments last quarter, HP's worldwide PC shipments declined 11.3 per cent in the second quarter of 2021 compared to a year ago.

Dell achieved its third consecutive quarter of year over year growth this period, with desk-based PCs seeing particularly strong growth of over 40 per cent compared to a year ago.

The next three vendors -- Apple, Acer and ASUS -- grew faster than the market, owing to improved availability of consumer PCs.

The demand for PCs from both consumer and business markets remained strong in Asia Pacific, resulting in 16.5 per cent year over year growth, the report mentioned.