Garnter: PC shipments this year are expected to grow by 4.4% to 368 million units

March 9th According to AllThingsD, Gartner, a market research company, issued a report on Thursday that global PC shipments this year are expected to increase 4.4% from 2011 to 368 million units. Although the market is still growing, the increase is much lower than in previous years.

According to Garnter, economic issues including the sovereign debt crisis in Europe and hard disk supply problems caused by flooding in Thailand all hindered the growth of the PC market. However, the company believes that the Windows 8 system and Ultrabook may save the PC market, but these products will not work until 2013. Garnter expects shipments of PCs to reach 400 million units in 2013.

Apple iPad and other tablet PCs certainly have an impact on PC sales, but this effect is relative. Gartner raised its expectations for the tablet PC market last fall and expects to sell 64 million units this year. However, this expectation may be more conservative because Apple sold 15 million iPads in the fourth quarter of 2011.

Gartner also believes that emerging markets will be the key to PC growth. From now until 2016, most of PC growth will come from these countries.