Worldwide shipments expected to fall 9.7 percent this year as mature markets are projected to outgrow emerging markets.
According to IDC, PC shipments will decline further than anticipated with an expected loss of 9.7 percent during 2013, contributing to the longest market contraction on record, as mobile devices increasingly outnumber the use of PCs and demand from the emerging market slows.
Overall, the market is expected to decline “through at least 2014”, and only single-digit growth is anticipated after that, with IDC never expecting to see the peak volumes last recorded in 2011 again. Portable PC shipments have continued to significantly outnumber desktop PCs in both emerging and mature regions, with this trend expected to continue until at least 2017.
The data analyst decided to further downgrade its PC outlook due to “stubbornly depressed consumer interest” as well as the fact that 2013 is the first year where emerging regions are forecasted to contract at a steeper rate than mature regions, with China’s forecast involving a double-digit decline in shipments this year compared to 2012 due to stagnant inventory and the continued popularity of tablets and smartphones. Furthermore, anxiety over the possible tapering of the US quantative easing programme along with weak intrinsic PC demand have also affected formerly strong growth areas, leading to declines in emerging markets well into 2014.
Beyond next year, IDC expects a slow rebound driven by “modest consumer refresh of systems whose lifecycle have dramatically lengthened in recent years” and businesses beginning to look beyond Windows 7; but it added that “without an adequate mass of compelling applications, the PC market is poised to subsist primarily on lukewarm replacements in the future”.
Jay Chouc, Senior Research Analyst, Worldwide Quarterly PC Trackers at IDC, said: “The days where one can assume tablet disruptions are purely a First World problem are over. Advances in PC hardware, such as improvements in the power efficiency of x86 processors remain encouraging, and Windows 8.1 is also expected to address a number of well-documented concerns. However, the current PC usage experience falls short of meeting changing usage patterns that are spreading through all regions, especially as tablet price and performance become ever more attractive.”
The Recycler has reported that PC shipments in the EMEA region during 2Q13 contracted 22.2 percent; although there was a 30 percent increase in PC shipments in India during the same quarter and US shipments stabilised.