Research firm Gartner Inc. slashed its growth forecast for the global personal computer market this year to 3.8 percent from 9.3 percent, citing slower economies in Western Europe and the United States, and a boom in media tablet computers, Reuters reported.

The success of Apple’s iPad has dented consumer demand for personal computers, and the long-hoped-for recovery in the corporate and government computer replacement cycle has been hurt by the debt crisis and associated fallout.

Gartner said an increasingly pessimistic outlook is causing consumer and business sentiment to deteriorate in the United States, and consumer and business spending on PCs will fall as a result.

The slowing, changing market has hit traditional leaders of the PC market.

Hewlett-Packard Co. said in August it may drop its PC business, which is the world’s largest after the company’s $25 billion acquisition of Compaq Computer Corp. in 2002, as part of a series of moves away from the consumer market.

“Media tablets have changed the dynamic of the PC market, and HP’s decision to rethink its PC strategy simply highlights the pressure that PC vendors are under to adapt or abandon the market,” said George Shiffler, research director at Gartner, in an interview with Reuters.