"We are seeing some evidence of channel inventory restocking, particularly in the US," said George Shiffler, research director at Gartner, in a statement. However, he declined to say that this means the market has bottomed out. "This restocking should not be interpreted as a recovery in PC end-user demand; it's still unclear if the global PC market has hit the bottom," he said.

tString := StoryDateLine + " (" + @Text(StoryFiledDate) + ") - "; @If(datelineinbody = "No"; tString; "")On its part, IDC said PC shipments, fueled by netbook sales, were better than expected. IDC put the figure at 63.4 million shipments of PCs and netbooks, down 7.1 percent from last year. Earlier it had predicted an 8.2 percent decline. IDC maintains that this year doesn't look as bad as the dot-com bust.