IDC, however, expects PC growth to pick up next year as vendors update their offerings and include more features on laptop devices, he added.

Lenovo posted the fastest growth in the quarter among the world's top five vendors, according to the two research firms. Gartner put Lenovo's market share at 13.5 percent, while it put Dell's share at 11.6 percent.

Lenovo has consistently shown high growth in the last quarters, as the company has worked to expand in developing markets while also protecting its home turf in China, which in the second quarter in PC shipments and sales.

For the quarter, Dell posted a decrease in growth by just over 1 percentage point, according to both research firms.

The U.S. market also moved out of negative growth at the end of the quarter, with IDC reporting that shipments remained flat. "As we approach the holiday season, the opportunity for low single-digit growth is real, but mostly as a result of poor market conditions last year, as opposed to a recovery in demand," said IDC personal computing research director David Daoud in a statement.