PC Industry Is Now On a Two-Year Downslide (theverge.com)

According to analyst firm Gartner, PC shipments have declined for eight consecutive quarters -- "the longest duration of decline in the history of the PC industry." The company found that worldwide PC shipments totaled 68.9 million units in the third quart of 2016, a 5.7 percent decline from the third quarter of 2015. The Verge reports: The firm cites poor back-to-school sales and lowered demand in emerging markets. But the larger issue, as it has been for quite some time, is more existential than that. "The PC is not a high priority device for the majority of consumers, so they do not feel the need to upgrade their PCs as often as they used to," writes Gartner analyst Mikako Kitagawa. "Some may never decide to upgrade to a PC again." The threat, of course, comes from smartphones, which have more aggressive upgrade cycles than PCs and have over time grown powerful enough to compete with desktop and laptop computers at performing less intensive tasks. Tablets too have become more capable, with Apple pushing its iPad Pro line as a viable laptop replacement. PC makers are feeling the pressure. HP, Dell, and Asus each had low single-digit growth, but Acer, Apple, and Lenovo all experienced declines, with Apple and Lenovo each suffering double-digit drops. Meanwhile, the rest of the PC market, which collectively ships more units per quarter than any of the big-name brands, is down more than 16 percent. Some good news is that 2-in-1 devices have experienced year-over-year growth. Kitigawa also notes: "While our PC shipment report does not include Chromebooks, our early indicator shows that Chromebooks exceeded PC shipment growth."

Comments

I confess - I am hurting PC sales

[the_Bionic_lemming]

Because I won't buy pre-made..

I build a beast every 7 years or so. The one I'm using to post is only 6 months old and my first venture into liquid cooling.

But the previous posters sorta made that clear, if you aren't gaming or actually stressing the system - then a ten year old laptop is all you really need for email and reading web pages. I just wish they knew if they went into task scheduler, and stopped all the craptastic stuff M$ was doing on their system that their PC or laptop is actually a lot faster than it seems.

I make some good side cash just getting rid of the tasks and "fixing" peoples older pcs.

Re:$$$ Workstations

[Anonymous Coward]

"What problems ahead did they have? How do you qualify the P4 as shite?"

Heat from power needed to supply those fast switching transistors being the main one. Basically heat can't escape fast enough for the heat generated so your CPU fries. During the Pentium 4 era they were expecting P4's design to scale upwards of 10Ghz and predicting stuff like 30Ghz processors, we are nowhere near that 30Ghz though 10 years later and that was in 2006. They also had problems with non corrupt signals and power getting to every part of the chip that needs it in time for the next clock tick. Then there was issues with electron tunnelling and electrimigration, as well as leakage.

CPU's stopped getting easier to shrink because the power needed to drive transistors increases at smaller geometries because as transistors shrink you paradoxically need more power because of electrical losses at smaller sizes. So basically you're in a catch 22, you need more power to keep the transistors fed at the same time you are putting out more heat in tighter packed spaces with no way to transfer the heat away.

Also everyone has one

[Sycraft-fu]

In the US it is getting to the point that nearly everyone has a computer. Even people who are pretty poor usually already have a computer. Probably not a great one, but they have one. There is market saturation. So when everyone has one, and the pace of hardware has slowed so you don't need a new one as often, well ya sales are going to go down. The market is mature. That happens to markets in the long run, they can't grow forever.

I get tired of this attitude that some journalists (and investors) have that the only states are "growth" and "death". No, industries can be mature, stable, lots and lots are. That's what's happening in computers.