Global PC Shipments To Decline This Year

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Global PC Shipments To Decline This Year

The DIGITIMES quoting Gartner, reports that the global PC shipments would decline by 0.4 percent in 2012.

Based on the report, Gartner projects that the total PC shipments globally will decline by 1.5 million or 0.4% from 365 million PCs shipped in 2011 to 363 million total PC shipments in 2012.  The report also quoted data from Gartner that the desktop shipments decreased by 3 million, which is a major contributor in the global decrease of PC shipments.

According to DIGITIMES, Gartner also estimated that the global shipments for Notebook will increase by 5 % in 2012 and the global shipments for Tablets mobile devices will grow by 80% to 110 million due to increase sales for iPad, Nexus 7, next-generation Kindle Fire and iPad mini. The report  also says that Garner projected that the global shipments of client computing devices will reach 485 million units.  The growth will be 14% compared with the 424 million units shipped in 2011.

In April 2012, Gartner reported a 1.9 percent growth in worldwide PC shipments for the first quarter of 2012. Mikako Kitagawa, Principal Analysts at Gartner explained last April that the result of the study varied in different regions. According to him, the EMEA region performed better than expected. He also cautioned the vendors within the PC industry that they cannot depend heavily on the emerging markets for future growths because the countries were also showing economic slowdown during the first quarter.

On the other hand, a recent report from the International Data Corporation (IDC) showed that the worldwide PC market is expected to grow by 5% in 2012. IDC projected that the total PC shipment will reach 383 million units, a slight growth compared with the total number of PCs shipped in 2011.

Data from the IDC Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker showed that the worldwide PC market is affected by the increasing consumer saturation of mature region, launching o Windows 8 and the growing competition in Tablet mobile devices and the economic uncertainties.

Jay Chou, Senior Research Analyst of IDC Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker said, “The first quarter PC volume results showed an upstick over our forecast. However most of the volume was due to faster-than-expected recovery of hard disk drive (HDD) supply related to flooding on Thailand.

In the United States, PC market will continue to slow down over the next two quarters according to IDC Personal Computing Research Director David Daoud. He said,   “Most consumers and businesses in need of PCs already have PCs and see no immediate reason to upgrade or expand. The market is also evolving amid a heated presidential election campaign, adding more stress to consumer and business confidence, with both segments refraining from spending or hiring.” Daoud also said that launching of Window 8 might help revive the PC market by the end of the year.

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