News - PC sales decline by 9.8 per cent, according to IDC

[HEXUS]

Smaller falls predicted in 2014 and 2015, however.

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[minicale]

Doesn't say anything about how many people are using a pc though when you take into account how many more people are building their own and upgrading old pcs.

[Goobley]

It shouldn't really be a surprise anyway - fewer people need PCs nowadays, my folks use their tablets for almost everything and only turn on the computer to write the odd longer document or navigate crazy flash pages

[GuidoLS]

I think that surveys such as this also fail to take into account that there are far fewer junk computer dealers out there as well - they've been weeded out, and the kit on the market today, and for the last few years, really, have been far less likely to fail than they were in the last decade. That, and for the most part, desktops, in particular, are far easier to fix and/or upgrade, unlike the ink jet printer market, which pretty much is a disposable item market - I don't know about the UK, but I can buy a new printer with ink cheaper here in the US than I can a new pair of ink cartridges.

[LSG501]

I don't know about the UK, but I can buy a new printer with ink cheaper here in the US than I can a new pair of ink cartridges.

pretty much the same here.... it's a bit stupid really when you can buy a replacement printer with inks for less than just the ink....

This drop in pc sales is pretty simple to explain really...
lack of disposable income so people are making do with what they have, it's not like a pc from the last 10 years can't manage what 80-90% of home users use their pc's for, web browsing and letters aren't exactly stressful lol. If they have spare money they'll buy a tablet pc because the desktop is still doing fine and 'want to keep up with the neighbours'.

Hardcore users such as gamers/professionals work on a different cycle so often upgrade to the newest parts as they come out or at the end of their workable life

[slipthemonkey]

A dip in the market is not a surprise but I don't think it heralds the death of the desktop PC as some have been claiming. There is always going to be a requirement or a desire for some to have desktop PCs, I'm sure not going to get rid of mine in a hurry. Apart from keeping the kit up to date for newer games, tinkering with my PC is just as much of a hobby as playing the games on it.

[crossy]

I'm in the strange position of being able to agree not only with the article, but also with the comments above.

Actually wouldn't like to be someone who only sold laptops because - for my experience at least - those are most vulnerable to the "tablet effect". Plus, as someone remarked to me, "at least with a proper PC you can get the case off and replace bits if they go wrong. Can't do that with a laptop".

I know others who would have replaced their laptops every 2-3 years who "want to hold onto it a bit longer, after all the new ones aren't THAT much better are they". That's a pretty difficult point to argue against - apart from touchscreens, is a mainstream laptop that was originally sold with Vista noticeably less capable than one sold with Windows8 if both are now running the same OS?

Desktops are different - processor power is up; graphics technology is also advanced; we've now got cheap SSD's for the OS. So if you chose your components with case, you CAN easily make that desktop last and last and last. And the lack of money means that people ARE more willing to "pick up a screwdriver and have a go. After all, how hard can it be?"

And at the risk of annoying some - the debacle with MUI/Windows8 mean that having that shiny new OS is less attractive for some people, who otherwise would update their hardware to get the new OS.

So it's bad news for the laptop and desktop makers, but good news for the component suppliers and tablet makers.

[Repressor]

I can't believe there's no crossover news to the end of XP here. Surely if a large proportion of computers are still using XP - and that OS has been out for around 10 years. It would mean that those people haven't bought a computer since at least 2007 (or maybe 2009?). Okay, there are large corporations who have enterprise scale installs - but I wouldn't expect this to outnumber personal computers.

I think we'll see a small recovery next quarter as people start to move on. Maybe.

As a side note: At least 2 (out of two that I've personally witnessed) of the UK's water distribution companies' networks are still on XP. Wonderful.

[slipthemonkey]

As a side note: At least 2 (out of two that I've personally witnessed) of the UK's water distribution companies' networks are still on XP. Wonderful.

Not to mention 95% of ATMs