Worldwide PC shipments totalled 83.7 million units in the fourth quarter of 2014, a 1 percent increase from the fourth quarter of 2013, according Big G.

These results indicate a slow, but consistent improvement following more than two years of decline.

Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner said that the PC market is quietly stabilising after the installed base reduction driven by users diversifying their device portfolios.

Tablets peaked in 2013 and the first half of 2014. Now that tablets have penetrated some key markets, consumer spending is slowly shifting back to PCs.

Mature regions show an ongoing trend of positive growth, but emerging markets remain weak," Ms. Kitagawa said.

"The US showed the highest growth in the fourth quarter of 2014. In EMEA, the Western Europe PC market also showed good consumer sales. Emerging markets, on the other hand, still showed weak PC growth. We attribute this weakness to a strong affinity for smartphones and tablets in those markets, while PCs are a low priority. Even low priced notebooks struggle to succeed, because of the different mobile device usage patterns."

Lenovo held onto its position as the worldwide leader in PC shipments in the fourth quarter of 2014, with 19.4 percent of the market. While Lenovo had strong growth in EMEA and the U.S., shipments declined in Latin America and Japan. As a result, the difference between Lenovo and HP narrowed in the fourth quarter of 2014 with HP growing 16 percent and garnering 18.8 percent of the market.

Dell continued to maintain the third position and accounted for 12.7 percent of the market. The fourth quarter 2014 results indicate that Dell's expansion into the consumer market has been successful, which was the least focused market for the company prior to the leveraged buyout.