Worldwide PC shipments totaled 78.5 million units in the third quarter of 2014, an on-year decline of 1.7%, according to IDC.

With shipments totaling 17.3 million PCs in the US during the third quarter, the market grew 4.3% from the same quarter a year ago and 2.6% from the previous quarter. Growth centered in strong momentum from the portables category, which grew by more than 9% on year.

IDC said Lenovo held a comfortable lead as the top PC supplier, hitting another record volume of 15.7 million units. The vendor managed to regain growth in Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) as well as maintain its strong pace of expansion and growth in EMEA. Hewlett-Packard (HP) shipped 14.7 million units and remained in the number two position with growth surpassing 5%. EMEA and mature markets continued to be the vendor's primary sources of growth, as were some last-minute public sector notebook shipments. Dell meanwhile shipped over 10 million units, growing 9.7% on year, and Acer grew over 11%, in part due to low volume a year ago but also from the success of its Chromebooks and entry-level notebooks.

Meanwhile, MIC recently said shipment volume of the Taiwan desktop industry is estimated to have reached approximately 17.4 million units in the third quarter, marking the highest-ever quarterly shipment performance.MIC estimates Taiwan's desktop shipments will top around 67 million units in 2014, up 12.1% compared to 2013, driven mainly by continued demand for commercial models and the rollout of new Intel and AMD processors.

Digitimes Research added that it expects all-in-one PC shipments to drop 2.4% on year in 2014 because enterprise and consumer buyers have both used their budgets to purchase conventional desktops. Sony quitting from the PC market is another driver that is causing all-in-one PC shipments to drop in 2014.