PC shipments continue to drop in Q3, but there might still be hope

[Justin Kahn]

There appears to be a glimmer hope for the declining PC market according to IT and market research firms Gartner and IDC. Recent data from the two companies suggests that while worldwide computer shipments are still dropping, the overall decline is much less steep than in previous months.

While this doesn't really sound all that reassuring, in comparison to the double-digit drop the industry experienced over the past several months, IDC and Gartner only estimate a year-over-year decline in shipments of around 8.6% for Q3. According to the research groups, the US market "continued to show signs of recovery" and in Japan most of the top 5 PC vendors saw growth compared to the previous year.

As far as who the top PC vendors were, Lenovo, HP and Dell took the top spots respectively. Gartner contributes Lenovo's success to its strong 2% growth in the US, and HP's position to its significant boost in shipments to India as part of a large education campaign. Taking third spot, Dell saw its first year-on-year growth since 2011, having shipped more than 9.5 million units in a single quarter for the first time in over a year.

In what Gartner says is the "Back-to-School sales quarter" that experienced the "lowest PC volume" in 5 years, Asus and Acer appear to have taken the biggest hit. Both companies suffered significant losses in Q3 due to a number of reasons, some of which include the lack of a corporate customer base and the rise of mobile devices (among other things), according to Gartner.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/54301-pc-shipments-continue-to-drop-in-q3-but-there-might-still-be-hope.html

 

[Adhmuz]

Nope, I blame Windows 8, why buy a new PC or Laptop just be lost when you can keep your current 2-3 year old laptop which still gets the job done, and your already comfortable with it. That and performance hasn't been going up adequately in my opinion, lack of pressure from AMD keeps Intel from doing anything revolutionary, and the small incremental performance boosts just aren't a selling point. Laptops need to do something new and exciting or people will just move to tablets permanently, it's already starting.

 

[Raoul Duke]

I think a major reason for lack of desktop PC sales is the power older systems still have. I have a i72600K from 2011 and the newer processors do not make a compelling reason to upgrade. Some family members that really didn't have much need for a PC (just e-mail, look at pictures etc.) have gone to tablets, but they were never going to upgrade unless the PC didn't work anymore.

 

[TomSEA]

Have to agree with what Raoul said. For most uses, a 4 year old PC will still work fine. And with the exception of SSD's and multi-terabyte HD's, there hasn't been much if anything in the way of hardware technology to warrant a new PC purchase.

 

[dividebyzero]

Nope, I blame Windows 8, why buy a new PC or Laptop just be lost when you can keep your current 2-3 year old laptop which still gets the job done, and your already comfortable with it.

I think it might be more a case of the shifting nature of how peoples usage and computing requirement is evolving. For a significant proportion of people, a smartphone (or similar) provides -or soon will do, most of their computing needs. Quite a number of people I know would rather spend money to update their phone or pop for external storage and be quite happy to let their laptop/desktop remain little more than a transcoding and storage option- assuming they can't offload the tasks onto a work system and physical media/data storage.

 

[GhostRyder]

Our society is just becoming more focused on mobile and having everything with us at all times. It really started with the introduction of the Smart Phone, mixing all this together with the social networks, maps systems, and just being able to browse the web at will, most users find having a laptop to be just easier than having a big bulky machine. Even light-medium gamers are now more likely to grab a laptop. Its amazing how many people I run into that have laptops with either an APU, a GT 620-650 or equivalent, or something like that.

Most efforts are being put towards the mobile realm, its becoming a fact of life sadly.

 

[EEatGDL]

I never look what those brands offer in desktop. I've built my PCs for the last 11 years, I'm building a HTPC next month and my friends and family ask me to either help them building or build their brand new desktop PCs. This is just companies crying, not "overall" computer sales dropping.

 

[St1ckM4n]

"But can it run Crysis?"

That's the reason why shipments are slowing. When a mid-range PC renders the above question invalid, we've got a problem.

 

[Mikymjr]

Do these numbers include computer parts sold individually to build a new system from the ground up? Cause I can still see a lot of parts being sold, meaning that this drop might not be the actual figure.

 

[Archean]

@DBZ
One thing I noticed about the mobile devices, their life cycle is much shorter than PCs, where as cost wise, they aren't any cheaper in reality. But the perception of cheapness is created by the 'subsidized' nature of business model, whereby the consumer end up paying cost of device over a period of time.

Personally, I prefer my notebook over any powerful phone any day of the year, since the later doesn't even come close to what one can 'comfortably' do on a PC.

 

[dividebyzero]

@DBZ
One thing I noticed about the mobile devices, their life cycle is much shorter than PCs, where as cost wise, they aren't any cheaper in reality. But the perception of cheapness is created by the 'subsidized' nature of business model, whereby the consumer end up paying cost of device over a period of time.

Accelerated obsolescence allied with what amounts to a hire purchase plan heavily loaded with interest payments on the back end?....in modern tech?....sounds like crazy talk!

Personally, I prefer my notebook over any powerful phone any day of the year, since the later doesn't even come close to what one can 'comfortably' do on a PC.

We haven't got to the stage (yet) where the phone/phablet has the processing power of a dedicated personal computer. although I don't envisage that state of affairs to last for any considerable time.
Even people whose attachment to their phone is akin to life support apparatus still generally need time with a personal computer...at the moment, although I have noticed a perceptible shift to console for entertainment, phone for general duties, and work/school computers to do any heavy lifting.

 

[Archean]

Accelerated obsolescence allied with what amounts to a hire purchase plan heavily loaded with interest payments on the back end?....in modern tech?....sounds like crazy talk!

Exactly what I meant with 'subsidized', since, it is nothing more then blatant deception.

Call me old school or whatever, but despite, my efforts, I just don't feel comfortable doing anything useful on tablets or phones (hell I generally don't send sms, instead I prefer to call ........ perhaps due to 5000 p/m free minutes for my preferred on network numbers, and 500 mins on all off-network numbers, which I never even come close to consume) .

 

[dividebyzero]

Call me old school or whatever, but despite, my efforts, I just don't feel comfortable doing anything useful on tablets or phones (hell I generally don't send sms, instead I prefer to call ........ perhaps due to 5000 p/m free minutes for my preferred on network numbers, and 500 mins on all off-network numbers, which I never even come close to consume) .

I might have you beat. My present phone is ~3 years old, the previous one I had for ~5 years. I text and occasionally send pictures (sfw ofc). That's it.
To paraphrase the CCRKBA: I'll give up my enthusiast desktop when you pry it from my cold dead hands!

 

[misor]

Pc shipments = assembled pc shipped by manufacturers so I call the data BS. perhaps its time for retailers to also show motherboard shipments because I, for one, build my own pc.

 

[Mooseinadesert]

At least PC gaming is still on the rise. 80 million units is still a massive amount, PCs are not going away anytime soon.

 

[Guest]

My 2009 cpu is a quad core overlocked to 4ghz with HT enabled. 4 years along and intel don't need to update there line of processors anymore nothing requires the power for the average user. my quad core 1.7ghz phone is catching upto my home pc slowly. Tech companies go were the money is and right now the money is in mobile and tablet hardware. The huge amount of average users who have been sucked into buying expensive home pcs just to check email and go onto facebook no longer require the pc thanks to the power of current portable technology which is far more convenient. The other benefit of mobile technology is people simply break lose & have them stolen more often so people are constantly buying new ones and keeping the market going. If broke into someones house and saw 3 iphones and a heavy pc I'm know which ones I'm going take.