Gartner and IDC, in separate reports, announced the boost in PC sales — a jump of more than 13% compared to the quarter last year.

An excerpt from EETimesAsia:

Preliminary figured by Gartner Inc. showed that worldwide PC shipments increased by 13.4 percent last year to reach 271.2 million. The industry ended the year with Q4 PC shipments of 75.9 million units, a 13.1 percent increase from the 67.1 million units shipped in the same quarter of 2006.

Rival industry tracker IDC also released preliminary results that indicate shipments in Q4 2007 fared even better, increasing 15.5 percent to 77.4 million units, up from 67 million the previous year. IDC reported that 269 million PCs were shipped in 2007, for annual growth of 14.3 percent.

The report is good news for Dell and HP, the leaders in the PC segment. It was the EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa) regions that largely contributed to the PC sales.

Despite the positive outcome, there are expectations of a slower growth rate in coming years.

More information:

Dell Swells (The Motley Fool)

IDC Notes Solid Growth for Worldwide PC Market (TMCnet)