New figures from Gartner have revealed that in the fourth quarter of last year, PC shipments in Western Europe reached 20.2 million units.
The organisation notes that this is a four per cent increase on the same period in 2008 and attributes this to the development of the consumer PC market.
However, the firm states that there will be a resurgence of the professional computer sector in 2010, with Windows 7 acting as a catalyst for this move.
Ranjit Atwal, principal analyst at Gartner, based in the UK, said: "The Western European PC market performed better than expected. Despite the tough economic conditions the consumer PC market provided vendors with a source of growth."
Overall, PC shipment figures for 2009 reached 64.8 million units, which represented flat growth from the previous year.
Earlier this month, the firm predicted that by 2014, social networking services will have overtaken email as the primary method of communication for many business users.