Personal-computer shipments dropped for a fifth straight quarter, the longest losing streak on record, as consumers continued to favor touch-screen tablets and smartphones for getting online.
Second-quarter global unit shipments fell 10.9 percent to 76 million, market researcher Gartner Inc. said yesterday in a statement. Sales slid from a year earlier in all regions, including a 1.4 percent drop in the U.S., Gartner said. IDC, another research firm, put the decline at 11.4 percent, narrower than its projected 11.7 percent contraction.