The Dying PC Market

An anonymous reader writes "The PC's role in Japanese homes is diminishing, as its once-awesome monopoly on processing power is encroached by gadgets such as smart phones that act like pocket-size computers, advanced Internet-connected game consoles, digital video recorders with terabytes of memory NEC's annual PC shipments in Japan shrank 6.2 percent to 2.72 million units in 2006, and the trend is continuing into the first quarter of fiscal 2007 with a 14 percent decline from a year earlier. Sony's PC shipments for Japan shrank 10 percent in 2006 from a year earlier. "The household PC market is losing momentum to other electronics like flat-panel TVs and mobile phones," said Masahiro Katayama, research group head at market survey firm IDC. "Consumers aren't impressed anymore with bigger hard drives or faster processors. That's not as exciting as a bigger TV," Katayama said. "And in Japan, kids now grow up using mobile phones, not PCs. The future of PCs isn't bright.""

Comments

Yeah, well

[gcnaddict]

they'll figure out how important PCs are once they want to start designing those video games, cell phones, PDAs, etc.

None of those could exist without the PC.

Re:Yeah, well

[ztransform]

The article wasn't debating whether the PC would exist, but it pointed out that the PC won't have the dominance it has had. Which makes sense really; most people want to play games, and e-mail. Not too many people at home actually make use of spreadsheets, even when preparing tax returns.

So if we have a dedicated games device at home, and a mobile phone that can browse the web and access e-mail then that's most of the technology the average punter will want/need.

Of course I expect most slashdot readers to still want their PCs..

Re:Yeah, well

[tacocat]

In part I agree, but I think there's another facet of the issue that they are overlooking.

The PC market is effectively saturated.

The need to upgrade your PC every 2 years to keep up with the software is passed. The only exception today is Vista and it's poorer than expected market penetration to date bears witness to the fact that people don't see the features available in Vista as merit for a new machine. We've reached a phase of good enough where computers can easily last 4-5 years in the technology curve without being painfully obsolete.

During the 1990's by the time the new computer you ordered was shipped to your house it was already being superceded by a newer model. And the software was moving almost as fast. Quickly what ran Windows 3.11 and Windows 95 couldn't hack Office 97 or Windows 98. It definitely couldn't manage Windows NT 4. The gaming video scene was even worse. Today there really isn't sufficient customer-facing change in the software to merit all the hardware changes.

Add to this the advent of computer gaming consoles like Playstation, XBox, Wii. When I bought my first computer I spend $3,000 to buy it and another $1,500 in the first 12 months for hardware upgrades in order for me to play the latest computer games. Contrast this with current computer use. Games are on the gamestation and my computers are reaching 5+ years of age and still more than sufficient in terms of performance, drive space (easy to add more) and stability/security. There just isn't a need to get a new computer.

The even more interesting change is that in the past five years I have spent more money on game stations then computers and in the next five years will continue this trend, augemented by new TV, DVD, DVR...

Computers are still essential. But the consumer spending isn't in that direction any more. There will be few consumers without a computer entirely, but they are more inclined to upgrade their phone then their computer.

Or...

[Gigiya]

They're just not upgrading every year?

Diminishing sales equals diminishing use?

[Gybrwe666]

I wonder if this is true or if we are just at a place where many casual users don't need to upgrade as often? Many of the advances of the last few years have been pretty incremental, or don't affect your average end user too much. If they can browse the web, send email, and run a few apps like Word Processing and Spreadsheets, that's all they need.

The advances of the last few years have gotten to the point where many people are satisfied and don't need to buy a new one. The only excpetion to this is the Gamer market, and I can see why gadget-crazy Japan might prefer Sony PS3 and Wii's to pc gaming.

I wonder if the people looking purely at sales are making a pretty basic error here, though.

morphing, changing, not dying

[icepick72]

The PC marketing isn't dying. It's changing. If people realized this we wouldn't have alarmist articles and we'd have a lot less useless stats. Every one of the "PC as we know it" makers today has the ability to adapt, to plan to make smaller hardware footprints, etc. We know the PC cannot totally disappear because you'll never see a room of programmers on a project sitting around compiling, testing, debugging and deploying applications using just a cell phone/PDA interface or equivalent. What is a PC? Does it really matter how small it gets? As long as some people still have access to a standard sized monitor and keyboard they will consider anything a PC, even if it's stuck to a postage stamp on your desk.

Re:morphing, changing, not dying

[ZorbaTHut]

Which is entirely true. The mainframe has changed - the modern mainframe is a huge farm of commodity computers.

You make an excellent point, it just wasn't the one you intended.

Saturated market.

[cuby]

PCs are not vanishing, only the number of people that don't have one.
What is the point of a new computer when the existing one do the tasks you need.

Re:To be preemptive.

[Orange Crush]

Depends on your definition of "PC" and "Mainframe." All those little devices *are* PCs (and are more powerful than the mainframes of the past!). The only difference is form factor. The "box on a desk" home computer may very well decline (I don't think it'll die any time soon, at least not for geeks). The "fridge-sized cabinets" sitting in datacenters feeding content to the desktop computers and mobile devices won't be going anywhere soon. If history has taught us anything, the more powerful mainframe-class computing becomes, the more stuff we find to throw at it.

Um, smartphones ARE PCs.

[aussersterne]

PC = Personal Computer

My smartphone has MS Office compatible word processor, spreadsheet, and database. It sends email and browses the web. It takes photos and manages my budget. It has an always-on map (Google Maps) that I can use to get my position and/or directions anywhere.

It IS a personal computer.

PCs aren't dying, they're getting integrated more closely into our lives.

PC/Vista sales are fine, Japan is problem

[AHumbleOpinion]

Their projections to Wall Street probably included a spike that hasn't happened.

Actually the US PC industry has been kicking as with respect to wall street expectations.

Microsoft beat expectations, including very good Vista sales, and broke through a five year ceiling of $30 and climbed to $37 last week after announcing earnings.

For the last three years HP has had a steady climb from $20 to $50. Analysts love their PC business.

For the last year and a half Intel has climbed from $17 to $27 as the Core architecture plugged the hole created by the Pentium 4 and that had let AMD gain market share. Analysts are in love with Intel again.

Dell is crawling out of a hole it fell into last years, analysts are starting to show interest in them again.

The problem is the Japanese economy. Last week they announced that unemployment had gotten worse. Sales are nearly flat year over year, industrial output down, exports to the US are down, exports to China are slowing, etc. Toyota stock has been going downhill all year, $138 to #113.