PC sales plummet, sharpest drop on record

[jes]

PC sales plummet, sharpest drop on record

Personal computer sales plunged 14 percent in the first three months of the year, the biggest decline in two decades of keeping records, as tablets continue to gain in popularity and buyers appear to be avoiding Microsoft Corp’s new Windows 8 system, according to a leading tech tracking firm.

 

[K8_]

How are these figures arrived at? Is it based on sales of Windows or Hardware? What would the Surface Pro be classified as? A PC or Tablet? Not that it would affect the stats significantly but it would be interesting to know.

 

[Kosmik]

Something I'd like to share:

Even if you buy a decent "mid-level" pc at a point in time, you can get away without buying another for a number of years with selective upgrades. For example, my recent:

Initial Purchased 2009 - Core 2 Duo e6500, 4 Gb ram, Geforce 9600 GTX,512Gb hdd
Upgrade Purchase 2012 - 2Tb hdd, ATI 6850, 700w PSU

I'm still using that machine to game ( Battlefield 3, Dishonoured, Tomb Raider, Bio-shock Infinate ) and while starting to now show it's age, especially with regards to load times ( however a SSD would probably sort that out ), I could upgrade components further but it's now better off to purchase a new machine base. My point is though that the machine has basically lasted a good 5 years and with modern processors and memory, there is no driving need to purchase a machine every year. The same cannot be said for tablets etc as that market is still young and a lot of innovations come out every few months and folks are "upgrading" tablets a lot more often than a PC.

2c

 

[cerebus]

I've been saying this was going to happen for a while now... Nothing matters in technology apart from what people WANT to buy, and that is tablets. Microsoft's decline is almost irreversible at this point.

 

[Sm00thSm0k3]

With the rise of powerful smartphones and tablets the decline of desktop PC as we know it was inevitable really. I'm sure there will be a valid market for them in the forseeable future but I can't help feeling that at some point the traditional desktop PC will generally be considered more of a gaming platform.

 

[Polymathic]

I had my heart set on a windows 8 laptop with touch capablities after seeing the prices of them I decided to wait until the price drops. I think the main problem are OEMs who are charging a premium for touch. Using windows 8 for non touch devices seems silly

 

[Bernie]

How are these figures arrived at? Is it based on sales of Windows or Hardware? What would the Surface Pro be classified as? A PC or Tablet? Not that it would affect the stats significantly but it would be interesting to know.

I once had a meeting with a manager at ICL (remember them ) he told me that PC sales are tracked by the number of CPU's shipped or something like that. I guess they get the sales figures from the chip makers. This was in 1994, I am not sure how its done nowadays. It would actually be interesting to know if the chip makers have suffered a similar decline in sales as a group.

 

[Sydwayz]

Frankly, all I've been using my PC recently for is to manage files on my external HDDs. Everything else is done with on the tablet. If I ever bother to get a USB OTG adapter and externally powered USB hub for the 2.5", I would be able to do that on the Tab as well.

 

[cerebus]

I think the tracking is more complex these days. It's based quite a lot on reported profits and units of the various manufacturers. There's such a lot of blurring of device categories that they need to be pretty fine-grained. Lenovo for instance is still doing pretty well in their laptop categories; Intel is declining; HP and Dell are just hemorrhaging and may not survive a couple more years.

 

[oom]

These figures may be accurate however a lot of people seem to be complaining in various industries that business is quieter at the moment than usual and nobody seems to understand or know why?