Global sales of personal computers climbed more than expected in the first three months of the year.
But slowing in China's booming market tempered optimism about the figures.
PC makers shipped 89 million units worldwide in the first quarter of this year, a 1.9% increase on the same time in 2011, according to industry tracker Gartner.
"The results were mixed depending on the region," Gartner said.
The region including Europe, Africa and the Middle East had impressive PC shipments of 6.7%.
But the Asia-Pacific area containing India and China saw slower growth than anticipated.
Sales of business machines powered growth, with consumer purchases of PCs for personal uses continuing to slide, according to Gartner.
Non-business demand for PCs was being hurt by tight personal budgets as well as competition from tablet computers, especially Apple's coveted iPads.
"While the PC industry has high expectations for strong growth in the emerging markets, the slowdown of these countries in this quarter provides a cautionary notice to vendors," the company said. "The future growth for the PC industry can not heavily depend on the emerging markets even though PC penetration in these regions is low," it cautioned.
The world's largest computer maker, US-based Hewlett-Packard, increased its share of the global market to 17.2%. Second-place computer maker Lenovo saw the biggest gains, with the China-based company's piece of the market swelling more than 28% to 13.1% compared to the same quarter a year earlier.
Dell and Acer lost market share, slipping to 11% and 10.9% respectively, according to Gartner.
