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PC Market Still Showing Few Signs of Life (axios.com)

Posted by msmash on from the shape-of-things dept.

An anonymous reader writes: It was another rough quarter for the global PC market, as fourth quarter unit sales dropped 2%, according to preliminary results from Gartner. In the U.S. things were even bleaker, with sales down 8%. HP was the only big name maker to post a sales increase in the U.S. and globally. It also passed Lenovo to grab the top spot globally and increased its lead in the U.S. over Dell. Apple saw Mac sales globally up 1.4%, but in the U.S. sales were down 1.6%. Dell gained less than 1% globally but fell more than 12% in the U.S. Lenovo sales dipped slightly globally, but its market share increased slightly, to 22% of the worldwide market.

10 of 218 comments (clear)

  1. Is this unexpected? by jbmartin6 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    PCs have mostly hit the 'good enough' point, there is no value in replacing them as frequently as in the past.

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    1. Re:Is this unexpected? by sdinfoserv · · Score: 5, Insightful

      In the corporate office we have PC's on 5 year replacement cycles. Try telling your CAD operator he has to use ipad... ya, then tell me again "THE PC IS DEAD"... for thousandth time since 2005...

    2. Re:Is this unexpected? by slickwillie · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Every 5-7 years I go to Ebay and buy whatever was hot like 5 years ago. I just graduated to an i3 with 2 cores!!! last year.

    3. Re: Is this unexpected? by sdinfoserv · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Here's what I find to be the practical demarcation:
      Consumers - those who consume tech services; read email, surf/browse, watch video, have a specialized app.... etc. work just fine on a tablet.
      Producers - programmers, CAD operators, AV content creators, critical office document users (word/excel/powerpoint), use PC's/MAC's/laptops.
      Security - need secure environments controlled by active directory and group policies. BYOD not acceptable. Governments, security organizations -all use PC's.
      Sure there are "inbetweens" like a writer who can get by with a tablet, but that's infrequent.

      The IPAD has been out almost 8 years. That's a life time in tech and they just a fraction of the corporate work space - like 3%. And Yes, a ton of tablets have been sold, but sales are slowing as saturation is close.

    4. Re: Is this unexpected? by gravewax · · Score: 1, Insightful

      which is why iPad sales are down far greater than the PC market? the bullshit that an Ipad is good enough for even most home users is exactly that..bullshit. very few want to interact with a ipad or similar tablet as their way to access the internet, it is a fucking awful experience. My mother loves her iPad for games, crosswords etc but she will get up and walk to her PC to use the internet or mail before using that thing to try to do anything even remotely productive.

    5. Re:Is this unexpected? by ilsaloving · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I think it's worse than it ought to be, and Microsoft is to blame.

      Generally, people have only really upgraded their machines when they needed to. Why replace what isn't broken?

      But thanks to Microsoft screwing the pooch on every single version of Windows after Windows 7, people are now actively averse to upgrading, because they will be forced to use whatever shit-tastic Windows Microsoft forces upon people.

      Needlessly modified UIs, OS-level spyware, updates that you cannot stop and have better than even odds of hosing your computer. IMO Microsoft is directly responsible for the collapse of the PC market.

      You'll notice that Apple is basically stable. And that's despite their bad press and questionable hardware design choices.

      If I had to buy a new machine right now, I would get Mac. As much as Apple pisses me off, I can at least mitigate their poor design choices with a couple of additional purchases. A frustrating hit to the pocketbook, sure. But a consumer has NO way to mitigate what Microsoft is doing without permanently disconnecting your computer from the network, so you pay for that lower price tag by needing to be eternally vigilant and having to constantly worry about whether you computer will still boot the next time you turn it on, through no fault of your own.

  2. GPU shortage by Tailhook · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Those who build "desktop" machines for gaming are in a bad place right now; mining has doubled the price of new GPUs; a GTX 1070 is ~$900+ right now anywhere that actually has them in stock. You can sell a used 970 for more than you paid new. Then you have GPU manufacturers sending a huge chunk of their foundry capacity to big ML cloud operators. The key piece of hardware for Desktop machines, a GPU, has become a costly and difficult to obtain part.

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  3. My desktop computer is 4 years old by MpVpRb · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...and it still works fine

    I did upgrade some stuff, like switching to an SSD, but for the stuff I do, performance is fine

    The main reason I don't upgrade more often isn't price, it's pain

    With restrictive licenses, activation, patches, drivers..etc, it's a MASSIVE PAIN IN THE ASS to upgrade. If I could just pop the hard drive in a new box and have everything adjust itself automagically, I would love to have the latest and greatest, even if I don't really need it

  4. New Laptop on Hold by Hrrrg · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I was planning to upgrade my laptop. But now with the Meltdown and Spectre issues? No thanks - I can wait a couple of years for them to design new chips.

  5. Windows 10 by hambone142 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'd love to buy new hardware but I WILL NOT buy a PC that runs Windows 10 or similar spyware OS's.

    I'm going to stay on Win7 and if Microsoft persists on collecting data on users with their OS, I will migrate to Linux.

    Game over unless Microsoft cleans up their act and I suspect they won't.

    That's one reason PCs aren't selling.