Lance Whitney wrote:

 

http://asset3.cbsistatic.com/cnwk.1d/i/tim2/2013/10/30/laptopsDan01_610x436.jpg

 

The walking dead notebook market showed some signs of life last quarter.

 

Shipments of mobile PC worldwide reached 47.9 million in the third quarter, a rise of 6 percent from the second quarter, research firm IHS said on Wednesday. That percentage represented the largest sequential gain for the moribund notebook market since a 7 percent rise in the third quarter of 2011.

 

That's the good news. The bad? Notebook shipments continued to plummet on a year-by-year basis.

 

The third quarter results were down 9 percent from the same quarter last year, the fifth consecutive quarterly drop. The decline was also the second worst drop since shipments fell by 14 percent during the previous quarter, making it clear to IHS that the market will face its second consecutive year of contraction in 2013.