Apart from India, which posted a 12 percent growth due to seasonal government buying, other markets registered sequential decline or slow growth, said IDC.
Reduced government spending affected PC sales in Hong Kong and Singapore. In China, shipments fell 15 percent partly due to a national political conference which delayed some government purchases.
However, shipments during the period, which totaled 7.4 million units, still reflected a 16 percent increase over the first quarter of 2003. IDC is upbeat about the outlook this year.
"The road to the upcoming year appears bright, as long as issues such as regional elections, China's WAPI (Wired Authentication and Privacy Infrastructure) encryption standard, and a destabilising situation in Iraq do not get in the way," Bryan Ma, senior manager for Personal Systems Research, IDC, said in a statement.
Chinese computer giant Lenovo (formerly known as Legend) remained the leading PC seller in the region with a market share of 10.9 percent. This was followed by HP, IBM, and Dell.
