The research company notes that although this is a decrease of 0.3 per cent compared to the same period of 2008, there was a return to seasonal growth patterns because of a sequential rise of 30 per cent.
Gartner states that mini-notebooks helped to ensure sustained growth in the consumer market and many vendors are surprised by the success of the products.
However, some vendors are taking advantage of the popularity by using telco channels to generate sales.
Ranjit Atwal, principal analyst at Gartner, said the west Europe PC market "saw varied results across Europe with two of the largest markets - Germany and France showing growth - and smaller markets like Spain and northern Europe exhibiting a decline".
The organisation also states that interest in hosted virtual desktop deployments is increasing in the Chinese and Indian markets.
