PC shipments in Asia Pacific (including Japan) totaled 107.6 million units in 2015, according to IDC's preliminary results. This accounted for a 7.7% on-year decrease and a steeper contraction from the 5.7% on-year drop in 2014. In the fourth quarter of 2015, the market declined by 6.5% on year, reaching 26.9 million units, in line with IDC's initial forecasts.

According to IDC Asia Pacific, the large education projects in India and Thailand held up the Asia Pacific PC market but the shipments were significantly affected by China's economic slowdown. The China government's anti-corruption initiatives and deceleration in the manufacturing, construction and mining sectors impacted commercial IT spending. Affected by a depressed retail environment, Chinese consumers prioritized smartphones and paid less attention to new PC offerings in the market. In Indonesia, the market also came out weak due to lower government IT spending and high inventory in the consumers channels throughout the year. Moreover, the results in the region were also affected by significant contraction in Japan, which suffered from high inventories and volatility of Yen.

"The low activity in consumer demand coupled with currency fluctuations have negatively impacted PC shipments in 2015. Many projects in the enterprise space have been postponed while SMEs remained cautious with their IT spending", said Maciek Gornicki, research manager for Client Devices Research at IDC Asia Pacific.

"Year 2016 is expected to remain difficult for the industry, as current gloomy economic outlook, with uncertainty in the financial markets in China affecting multiple countries will likely weigh on IT spending in the near future", Gornicki added.

Lenovo retained the top spot in 2015 despite a drop in its home base in China as it won large shares in India and Thailand's education projects, while making significant headway in the Australia and New Zealand consumer space. Dell remained in second place by maintaining high on-year shipments to the enterprise sector in 2015. HP came in third with higher on-year public sector shipments in China as well as from education project fulfillments in India and Thailand. Asustek Computer overtook Acer to take fourth place from higher on-year shipments in the key China and Indonesia consumer markets. It also reported higher education shipments to Taiwan and Thailand.