Market researchers from both Gartner and IDC say that PC sales in the first quarter of 2018 were flat. And it says something about the sorry state of this market that that’s considered good news.

“The market is continuing on a resilient path that should see modest commercial momentum through 2020,” an IDC researcher optimistically noted.

“In the first quarter of 2018, there was some inventory carryover from the fourth quarter of 2017,” Gartner added. “At the same time, vendors were cautious in overstocking due to the upcoming release of new models in the second quarter of 2018 with Intel’s new eighth-generation core processors.”

Put to hard numbers, PC makers sold 61 million units in the quarter, matching the 60.8 million units it sold in the same quarter one year ago. That’s “no” or “flat” (0 percent) growth.

So why is this good news?

Three reasons.

First, flat growth is not as bad as a fall. So while PC sales have now fallen for six straight years, we’ve been scrambling to find some light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. That light, IDC says, arrives in the form of the market outperforming expectations.

“[There is] a continued build-up in commercial renewal activity as the main driver for the stabilizing trend,” IDC claims. “Business uptake of Windows 10 systems appear to be steadily ongoing, … [there is] demand for premium notebooks in both the consumer and commercial segments, … [and] gaming systems [have seen] slight improvement[s].”

Second, when you compare this quarter to its predecessor a year ago, you’ll notice that things have improved noticeably year-over-year. In the same quarter of 2017, that 60 million figure represented a unit sales decline of 3.8 percent. This year, it’s flat.

Third, both firms agree that China dragged down the PC market overall, and had that not happened, we would have seen some serious growth.

“The major contributor to the decline [in Asia/Pacific] came from China, where unit shipments declined 5.7 percent year over year,” Gartner reported. “This was driven by China’s business market, where some state-owned and large enterprises postponed new purchases or upgrades.”

“The PC market in China performed below forecast with shipments weakened by a smaller number of promotions in the consumer segment and softer demand from the public sector,” IDC added.

As for the PC makers, little has changed year-over-year.

HP retained its top spot, selling 13.3 million units and controlling about 21.6 percent of the market. Lenovo was again second place, with sales of 12.3 million units (20.2 percent). And third place finisher Dell hit 10 million units (16.4 percent).

Apple finished a distant fourth with 4.1 million units, so the Mac now controls just 6.7 percent of the PC market. Acer closed on Apple, with 3.96 million units (6.5 percent), thanks to strong sales of its Chromebooks. (And since Gartner doesn’t even measure Chromebook sales, it is possible that Acer surpassed Apple in the quarter thanks to those device sales.)

Looking to the future, there is some cause for optimism. While the entry of Qualcomm ARM-based PCs is unlikely to fuel major growth, Intel has turned up the heat on performance and that will almost certainly improve matters. Sales of the firm’s 8th-generation chips, which feature more cores, better performance, and undiminished battery life, are strong, and are expected to keep getting stronger this year.

“[There is] optimism returning to the U.S. PC market, especially on the notebook side,” IDC noted, and “confidence,” a term we’ve not used for the PC market in quite some time.

And the average selling price (ASP) of PCs continued to rise, which may finally help overcome the pricing issues that started during the netbook era when PC makers pushed a high-volume, low-margin strategy. Today, they are pushing a low-volume, high-profit-margin strategy that focuses on “customer experience or perception of value,” as Gartner puts it.

And what about Windows 10?

With Microsoft’s newest platform closing in on the 700 million user milestone, it looks like businesses are finally getting in gear with mass deployments.

“Business uptake of Windows 10 systems appear to be steadily ongoing, benefitting commercially-focused PC OEMs such as HP, Dell, and Lenovo,” IDC said of Microsoft’s software.

And in Europe, oncoming General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requirements and security breaches are driving Windows 10 enterprise upgrades. “Enterprise shipments increased as many Windows 10 projects that were put on hold in 2017 began to be implemented,” Gartner claimed. “Security [is] a strong priority in the hardware refresh cycle among enterprises.”