Worldwide personal-computer shipments fell 5.2 percent in the first quarter as corporate spending that helped slow declines last year tailed off, market researcher Gartner reported. About 71.7 million units were shipped in the quarter, down from 75.7 million in the same period a year earlier, Gartner said Thursday in a report. IDC reported a wider decline, finding that 68.5 million units were shipped, a 6.7 percent drop. IDC said it was the lowest number of PC shipments since the first quarter of 2009.

The first quarter’s decline represents a return to a trend that saw PC sales hurt as consumers in emerging markets increasingly turned to smartphones and tablets to get online. That three-year downturn slowed temporarily last year as companies replaced corporate hardware based on the Windows XP operating system.

Lenovo Group widened its lead as the top supplier in the quarter, grabbing an 18.9 percent market share. The Chinese company shipped 13.58 million PCs worldwide, an increase of 5.7 percent from a year earlier, Gartner said. The only other gain among the top five companies was by Hewlett-Packard, which posted a 2.5 percent rise in shipments and boosted its share to 17.3 percent of the market.

Dell ’s shipments slipped 5.1 percent in the quarter, its first fall in six quarters, leaving it with a 12.6 percent market share.