The world’s PC industry is struggling – with one big exception.

Lenovo.

Even as the global PC industry retracted at a record 10 percent rate in 2013, Lenovo increased sales 6 percent during the last quarter of the year and thus strengthened its hold on the No. 1 computer seller spot while driving its global market share up to 18 percent.

“We continue to outperform the market while steadily improving profit and margin,” said CEO Yang Yuanqing about Lenovo, which operates one of its two global headquarters in Morrisville and employs well over 2,000 people in North Carolina.

“We are extremely optimistic about the future of the $200 billion-plus PC industry,” added Yang in a statement after research firms Gartner and IDC released reports Thursday that document the overall decline of sales.

However, neither firm includes tablet sales in its device totals. Sales of tablets are a major reason why PC numbers continue to drop, falling by 10 percent in 2013. That’s the worst-ever decline in annual sales since researchers began tracking such statistics.

Lenovo, while steadily diversifying into tablets and smartphones in order to decrease reliance on computer sales, reflected Yang’s confidence in the market at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week. The company, which does most of its business in China where the company launched more than two decades ago, introduced more than 20 models of PCs, tablets, hybrid devices blending tablet and PC capabilities, and smartphones at CES.

Yang calls his strategy “PC-Plus,” and the company keeps a big focus on laptop as well as desktop devices – what Yang calls the company’s “bread and butter.” Lenovo also continues to expand its server business, announcing new products as part of a joint venture with EMC. 

The company’s commitment to PCs was clearly shown last year when it launched a PC assembly line in the Triad. 

Overall, manufacturers shipped 315.9 million units, returning to 2009 levels and making it the “worst decline in PC market history,” Gartner said. IDC also said shipments had a record decline.

Consumers Choosing Other Devices

U.S. consumers omitted PCs from their holiday shopping lists while buyers in Asia opted for smartphones and tablets. More computing tasks are moving to websites and applications tailored for wireless gadgets, rather than software installed on laptops and desktops. The annual drop eclipsed the previous record decline of 3.9 percent in 2012, Gartner said.

“Consumer spending during the holidays did not come back to PCs as tablets were one of the hottest holiday items,” said Mikako Kitagawa, an analyst at Gartner. “In emerging markets, the first connected device for consumers is most likely a smartphone, and their first computing device is a tablet.”

Global sales fell 6.9 percent in the fourth quarter – the seventh straight drop – to 82.6 million units, Gartner said.

IDC reported a decline of 5.6 percent in the same period.

HP, Lenovo’s biggest rival, saw its sales plunge 7.2 percent and its global market share decline to 16.4 percent, according to Gartner.

Lenovo shipped 14 million PCs.

Growth in the PC market has become dependent on consumers and businesses replacing existing machines, rather than wooing new buyers. Enterprise demand is being driven in part by Microsoft Corp.’s plan to end support for its 13-year-old Windows XP operating system in April, compelling businesses to buy new PCs along with software upgrades.

U.S. shipments shrank 7.5 percent in the fourth quarter to 15.8 million units, Gartner said. Unit sales in Europe, the Middle East and Africa fell 6.7 percent to 25.8 million, while the Asia-Pacific region saw a 9.8 percent decline to 26.5 million.

Loren Loverde, an analyst at IDC, said the decline in PC shipments was the worst since the researcher started tracking data in 1981, with the previous record seen in 2001, when sales shrank 3.7 percent.

“We don’t think it’s quite the bottom yet,” Loverde said. IDC is predicting a 3.8 percent decline in PC shipments for 2014 this year, and then growth of less than 1 percent in 2015, he said.

[LENOVO ARCHIVE: Check out nine years of Lenovo stories as reported in WRALTechWire.]