Worldwide PC sales experienced an unexpected year-over-year decline for the first quarter, according to market research firm Gartner's preliminary sales figures for early 2011.

A year-over-year decline in apparel sales stabilized this year at around 19 to 21 percent compared to 2007.

While there have been signs of improvement in the past year as evidenced by the year-over-year decline in newly delinquent mortgages, the market is still fragile.

The yen's 15 percent year-over-year decline versus the dollar gave Sony a big boost; the company obtains about 70 percent of its revenue outside Japan.

Light truck prices fell 12.4 percent, the biggest year-over-year decline since the Labor Department began tracking them in 1964.

While unemployment was certainly lower during the boom years of the 1990's, this is the largest year-over-year decline in joblessness in the region since 1995.

While the firm announced a year-over-year decline in net earnings of 18 percent yesterday, it did gain market share in mergers and acquisitions and equity underwriting.

The latest figure shows a year-over-year decline of 3.2 percent.

The Americas were the hardest hit, with a year-over-year decline of 45 percent.

The 14% year-over-year decline was the largest on record since the firm began tracking in 1994, and double what analysts had been expecting.