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Gartner Inc. in its latest report has stated that the number of installed PCs worldwide has surpassed 1 billion units.

Gartner defines the installed base of PCs as the estimated number of PCs in use as opposed to the number shipped over a given a period, which is reported in Gartner’s PC forecast and market share reports. The company also took into consideration the constant replacement of whole units and hardware, some of which find a new owner as a second-hand machine while others end up in a landfill.

It estimates the worldwide installed base of PCs is growing just under 12 percent annually. At that pace, it will surpass 2 billion units by early 2014.

It is interesting to note that geographically mature markets in the US, Europe and Japan contain just 15 per cent of the world’s population but account for 58 per cent of the installed base of PCs.

According to Luis Anavitarte, research vice president at Gartner:

Whereas mature markets accounted for just under 60 percent of the first billion installed PCs, we expect emerging markets to account for approximately 70 percent of the next billion installed PCs. Emerging market governments are also increasingly committed to reducing the digital divide by promoting PC use among their citizens through a variety of means, including providing PCs directly to the less affluent.

The report also underlined that there’s a startling difference in per capita PC penetration between mature and emerging markets. Of course, much of this difference reflects the disparity in average living standards between mature and emerging markets. But, rapid economic development across emerging markets is not only narrowing the disparity in average living standards, it’s closing the difference in per capita PC penetration between mature and emerging markets.

Meike Escherich, principal research analyst at Gartner said:

We forecast just over 180 million PCs — approximately 16 percent of the existing installed base — will be replaced this year. We estimate a fifth of these, or some 35 million PCs, will be dumped into landfill with little or no regard for their toxic content.

This is a preliminary report and analysts will provide more detailed analysis on the state of the PC industry, as well as analysis on server and printer markets, during the Gartner Hardware Briefing June 25 at the Gartner U.K. headquarters in Egham.