Gartner Inc. reported recently that worldwide PC shipments are on pace to reach 285 million units in 2009, a mere 2% decline from 2008 shipments of 291 million.

The new forecast is a big improvement from Gartner’s June forecast, which anticipated a 6% unit decline in 2009.

“PC demand appears to be running much stronger than we expected back in June, especially in the U.S. and China,” said George Shiffler, research director at Gartner.

“Mobile PC shipments have regained substantial momentum, especially in emerging markets, and the decline in desk-based PC shipments is slowing down. We think shipments are likely to be growing again in the fourth quarter of 2009 compared to the fourth quarter of 2008.”

Despite the increasingly positive outlook for the PC market, Gartner isn’t predicting that global shipments will grow this year, unless there’s a fast and furious economic turnaround.

For PC shipments to grow for the year, they’d have to grow at least 4%  in the second half of 2009 compared with the second half of 2008.

And that, say Gartner analysts, is a bit of a stretch, even if Windows 7 is wildly popular when it’s released October 22.

What do you think are the chances of that?