Lenovo, ASUS shine, though overall PC sales flat in second quarter

Lenovo® held on to its recently attained spot as the No. 2 PC vendor in the world during the second quarter of 2012, posting year-over-year growth of 14.9 percent, according to a report from research firm Gartner.

The company was one of the few bright spots in the PC market, which saw desktop and laptop PC shipments decline 0.1 percent compared to the second quarter of 2011. Worldwide, PC shipments totaled 87.5 million units, Gartner reports.

Lenovo wasn't the only company to show growth, however. Taiwanese manufacturer ASUS® posted the largest increase in the quarter, growing 38.6 percent over the previous year. Acer® also saw modest growth of 3.6 percent.

Gartner notes that consumers simply aren't interested in making PC purchases at the moment, and are instead gravitating toward new mobile devices like smartphones and tablet computers.

Though mobile devices are cannibalizing the PC market at the moment, some experts predict that once the hype levels off, PCs and mobile devices will be seen more as complementary than competitive. Global Industry Analysts, for example, expects tablets to displace nearly 10 percent of PC sales by 2014, but it is likely the relationship between the two devices will change over time.