With global PC shipments, the new normal that down is up still rules. Global Q3 2014 PC shipments lost 1.7 percent from last year but still exceeded expectations, according to new IDC data.

However, timing is everything and the researcher, which figured the PC industry would slide about 4 percent year over year, said computer makers historically do much better in Q3 than as a group they did this time around. While sales of lower-priced PCs improved shipments for the quarter, in the long run the unexpected uptick likely isn’t sustainable, IDC said.

"Although shipments did not decline as much as feared, these preliminary results still show that 3Q14 was one of the weaker calendar third quarters on record in terms of sequential growth,” said Jay Chou, IDC Worldwide PC Trackers senior research analyst. “The third quarter has historically been driven by back-to-school sales and renewed business purchasing, which were weaker than normal this year," he said. "The current growth of lower-priced systems, while encouraging in the short run, brings concern for the long term viability of vendors to adequately remain in the PC space."

While the top three players—Lenovo, Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and Dell—all posting respectable growth from the same time last year, perhaps the big news is Apple’s (AAPL) first ever move into IDC’s worldwide top five in PC shipments, edging out Asus. Mac shipments were up an estimated 8.9 percent in Q3, IDC said, earning the vendor a 6.3 percent share of the total worldwide market.

Apple’s “steady growth, along with recent price cuts and improved demand in mature markets, has helped it to consistently outgrow the market,” IDC said. The vendor consistently is among IDC’s PC leaders in the United States but not worldwide.

According to IDC’s data, Lenovo kept its worldwide PC shipment top spot, growing 11.2 percent in Q3 to reach 15.7 million units. HP moved 14.7 million units during the quarter, a 5.1 percent increase, for second place, while Dell shipped 10 million units in the period for a 9.7 percent year-over-year rise. Acer, riding Chromebook and low-priced notebooks, boosted its shipments by 11.4 percent to 6.6 million units, for fourth place worldwide.

Among the top five PC shippers in Q3, HP’s year-over-year growth rate was the slowest.

IDC’s vendor shipment figures include desktops, portables, ultraslim notebooks, Chromebooks, and workstations but exclude handhelds, x86 servers and tablets.