Logitech CEO Bracken Darrell bounced his company’s latest speaker across the table and onto the floor.

“It’s almost unbreakable,” Darrell said as the wireless speaker continued blasting “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones. “It’s so fun to put it underwater.”

His words are a metaphor of sorts for the technology-accessories company, which has not gone under despite a historic decline in sales of personal computers, an industry the company depended on for all of its 35 years.

Indeed, the Swiss company, which has its U.S. headquarters in Newark, just posted its best quarterly sales growth rate in five years, up 13 percent from the previous year, to $480 million. Its stock price is near its highest point since 2008.

While best-known for keyboards and mice, Logitech has bounced back by investing in equipment for video gamers and adding products like earphones, speakers, smart car accessories and home security cameras.

“We try to carve off areas where we feel we can be a leader, maybe not in the whole category, but in our slice of the category, and then we try to gain market share through innovation,” Darrell said.

Analyst Kirk Adams of Rosenblatt Securities credited Darrell with turning around the company by revamping engineering, manufacturing and marketing. Logitech also shed an unprofitable video-conferencing services unit and a low-profit business based on building keyboards for PC makers like HP and Acer, Adams said

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Now, Logitech is “hitting on all cylinders,” said Adams, who directs his firm’s software and consumer electronics research. “He’s rejuvenated every piece of the business.”

Logitech was founded in 1981 and now has about 650 of its 2,550 employees in Newark. It built its reputation by selling keyboards, mice, webcams, speakers and other accessories for personal computers and laptops.

But worldwide PC shipments declined 9.6 percent during the first quarter of this year, the sixth consecutive quarterly decline, according to technology research firm Gartner. And the number of PCs shipped during the quarter was the lowest since 2007, the year Apple introduced the iPhone and ignited a shift toward smartphones and tablets.

Those market conditions don’t seem intuitively favorable for a company that sells PC accessories. However, the downturn in new PC sales paradoxically helps a company like Logitech, said technology analyst Rob Enderle, president of the Enderle Group.

“It’s not that people have stopped using their PCs,” Enderle said. “The accessories market actually does better, because more people are buying accessories because they have the money.”

He noted that tablet sales have also gone sideways and mobile phone sales are down, while people are refreshing their old devices with improved keyboards, mice, headphones, cases and other items.

However, it remains to be seen whether Logitech can make headway in an increasingly crowded headphones market that includes big brands and startups, Enderle said. Logitech also sells a video-conferencing device, but that market “comes and goes," he said.

Logitech has had to bounce back from past missteps. In 2009, it paid $405 million to buy PC video conferencing business LifeSize Communications, which turned into “a terrible acquisition,” Adams said. Late last year, LifeSize spun out of Logitech to become an independent company.

Logitech also ran into problems selling the Revue, an Internet TV streaming device built on Google’s TV operating system. Introduced in late 2010 under then-CEO Gerald Quindlen, the company discontinued the poor-selling Revue less than a year later.

Guerrino De Luca, who by then had replaced Quindlen as CEO, acknowledged that the device was a “gigantic” mistake that cost the company more than $100 million in operating profit.

The mistake dogged Logitech into this year, when in April, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced that the company would pay a $7.5 million penalty for fraudulently inflating fiscal 2011 financial results. The SEC also fined Logitech’s former controller as well as its former accounting director, and said Quindlen had returned $194,487 worth of compensation and stock sale profits, although he was not accused of misconduct.

Logitech reported a net loss of $228 million for fiscal year 2013, the year Darrell took over as CEO. The former Whirlpool, Procter & Gamble and GE executive joined Logitech as president in April 2012.

“I came in here to put juice back into a great design company,” he said in an interview. “I knew the PC (industry) was declining. That’s what attracted me, because this was a company that doesn’t have a choice. We had to enter new markets.”

One of those new markets was actually one Logitech had neglected, a decision Darrell called another “tactical mistake.” While overall PC sales have slowed, the video game segment kept growing, particularly with competitive e-sports events drawing big crowds in person and online.

Darrell, who noted that his own video game-playing children love Logitech products, reinvigorated the company’s line of keyboards, mice and headsets engineered for the fast-click world of e-sports. The company also sponsors professional e-sports organizations like the popular Cloud9, which has several teams competing in games like “League of Legends.”

The company is capitalizing on the desire of gamers to upgrade their computer rigs with the best accessories. Overall, keyboard sales went up 12 percent in the first quarter, he said.

When it comes to video games, industry research firm Newzoo said, U.S. players still rank accessories rivals including Razer, SteelSeries and Turtle Beach as better brands, although about 21 percent of the players named Logitech G accessories as their favorite.

One gamer named Ruse_eSports recently posted on his YouTube channel a review of a Logitech webcam he bought to improve the video he provides to his audience. “I’m going to give this camera an eight out of 10, just because the audio on the camera is ehhh,” he said in the video. “But the quality is good. I like everything about it.”

Logitech has also focused on physical keyboards for mobile devices. One wireless keyboard, released in Europe and soon to be available in the U.S., can instantly switch between three devices, such as a mobile phone, tablet and PC.

Author James Agee of Bluefield, W.Va., said his Logitech keyboard has become his “go-to writing tool.”

“Instead of having square buttons on the keyboard, all of the buttons are round and feel much better to type on,” he wrote in an email.

Darrell said the company’s future still extends beyond PCs to markets such as music. In April, the company bought wireless headphone maker Jaybird for $50 million. Its Ultimate Ears division, bought in 2008, produces the cylindrical waterproof speaker he gleefully tossed about the room.

The company has also expanded the capabilities of its line of universal TV remotes to control an increasing number of Internet-connected smart home devices, like bulbs and thermostats.

Darrell also showed off ZeroTouch, a small device that clips an Android phone to a car’s air vent. It then syncs with the phone to give the driver voice control over music, maps, calling, texting and other functions.

Adams said the company is doing well against heavy competition in different markets, like Microsoft, Belkin and Kensington in keyboards and mice, Sony and Beats in headphones and Netgear in home security cameras. The challenge will be to “keep on track” designing quality devices, Adams said.

That said, Logitech is “focusing on areas where people continue to spend money, and that seems to be paying off,” Enderle said.

Benny Evangelista is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: bevangelista@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ChronicleBenny