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PC Shipments In 2013 See the Worst Yearly Decline In History

Posted by Soulskill on from the what-will-it-stabilize-at? dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The PC market continues to be in free fall, having now seen its seventh consecutive quarter of declining worldwide shipments. Worldwide PC shipments dropped to 82.6 million units in the fourth quarter of 2013, according to Gartner, a 6.9 percent decrease from the same period last year. It's worth emphasizing that this past quarter resulted in a total of 315.9 million units shipped in 2013, a 10 percent decline from 2012, and the worst decline in PC market history. The overall shipment level was equal to the one in 2009."

13 of 564 comments (clear)

  1. Current PCs are good enough. by roc97007 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Film at eleven.

    --
    Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
    1. Re:Current PCs are good enough. by UnknowingFool · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Also people are turning to tablets more often for casual computing rather than getting a 2nd or 3rd computer. And then some people just don't like Win 8.

      --
      Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
    2. Re:Current PCs are good enough. by msobkow · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Old PCs are good enough. I'm still on a 3.8 GHz P4 single core running Debian, and it's fast enough for everything I do but running my pet project or doing video encoding, both of which I do on my Core i7 laptop.

      My folks recently had to replace their machine. It's a quad core unit that is such serious overkill for email and surfing it's not even funny. Unless it breaks down, I doubt they'll *ever* have to replace it.

      --
      I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
    3. Re:Current PCs are good enough. by hairyfish · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That, and that fact that Win8 is an unmitigated disaster. Had Win8 given us a Win7-type interface then I'm sure the slowing PC market wouldn't have slowed quite as quickly.

    4. Re:Current PCs are good enough. by roc97007 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      There is that. It'd be difficult to quantify, but I suspect that there is a significant percentage of people who were going to get another PC, but decided to wait rather than struggle with Win8.

      But I think the overriding factor is that PCs made since, oh, 2007 are fast enough for any but the most demanding needs.

      --
      Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
    5. Re:Current PCs are good enough. by roc97007 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Old PCs are good enough. I'm still on a 3.8 GHz P4 single core running Debian, and it's fast enough for everything I do but running my pet project or doing video encoding, both of which I do on my Core i7 laptop.

      My folks recently had to replace their machine. It's a quad core unit that is such serious overkill for email and surfing it's not even funny. Unless it breaks down, I doubt they'll *ever* have to replace it.

      That's kinda the point -- you can't BUY a PC these days that isn't serious overkill for email and surfing.

      --
      Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
    6. Re:Current PCs are good enough. by scamper_22 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What is odd though is that this is not an enviable market to be in. People spend all kinds of money on things they don't need or replacing things that work perfectly well.

      Even with something as expensive as cars, many people just want a newer car for the simple reason that it is newer. Their old car works perfectly well. But hey,,, time to buy a new car.

      People spend so much money eating out or on coffee and snacks... yet think twice before spending $1.99 or some app.

      People replace clothes all the time just because they're bored of it.

      Apple has probably been the most visible in its ability to get people to think of the computing market like they do the rest of life.

      I often catch myself thinking about my purchases. I'll be cheap about my computer or worry about spending money on a game that takes so much skill to make (so many programmers, graphic artists, managers...). Then I'll go out and spend $50.00 at a restaurant or blow $50 on a pair of jeans that probably cost $5 to make and rest is all show.

      Current PCs are good enough, but it is sad how poorly we treat the field relative to the rest of life.

      yeah, a PC is just a tool... and that's the problem.
      A cup of coffee is just a cup of coffee.
      A pair of jeans is just clothing.

      Somehow many other fields manage to make it more than that and that keeps the money going.

    7. Re:Current PCs are good enough. by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Win8 + ClassicShell is fine

      Third party UI add-on. 95% of users will never even hear of it, much less use it. Meaningless to the over-all acceptance of Win 8.

    8. Re:Current PCs are good enough. by gweilo8888 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Also, if kept reasonably clean, a Mac will last way longer than the typical OEM box/laptop.

      Is that from the ministry of made-up statistics? Because if so, I'd like to rebut with this, from the ministry of silly ministries -- I have multiple, perfectly-working Windows-based PC machines (both desktop and laptop) that are well over a decade old. In fact, the *only* component failures of any kind that I have had with my machines are hard disks, fans, and keyboards, all of which fail with identical frequency in Macs because they are the exact same components.

  2. Computers these days are more than adequate by Jimbookis · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Anything sold in the last 4-5 years with an i3/i5/i7 with over 2GB of RAM and Vista or Win7 is still more than enough for most businesses and individuals. There is no real incentive to replace the whole machine when there are cheap options to upgrade with a few more GB and an SSD to give it a new lease of life.

  3. Re:Theories? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    III. is incorrect. The tech-savvies "coming of age" now have jobs, relationships, kids, responsibilities. Gone are the days of spending a whole day troubleshooting and tweaking video drivers to get the latest game to work. Now it's a matter of "I need it to work and don't have the time to fix it". That's when you realize the phones, tablets and Macs are built to be simple and reliable to use. Perhaps not perfect but reliable. Those who have come-of-age have a little more money than time these days.

  4. Modded funny but... by Radical+Moderate · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think that's a factor. Last time I bought a PC it was partly because I wanted to upgrade to win7. Nobody wants to "upgrade" to 8, I expect a lot of people are waiting for MS to replace it with an OS that sucks less.

    --
    Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
  5. Re:Anyone surpised by this? by HiThere · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Tablets don't have decent keyboards. Smart phone additionally have screens that are too small.

    There are a lot of use cases where tablets and smartphones are sufficient. There's a huge number where they aren't. But people will use what they have on hand even if it's poorly adapted to the job.

    FWIW, I'm considering getting a smartphone. It has a use-case that makes sense. I can't see ANY case for a tablet...except for things like warehouse worker, or inventory control. The ergonomics of keyboards are bad enough.

    --

    I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.