Information technology research firm Gartner has forecast slower growth pace for worldwide personal computer shipments in 2011 as compared to its earlier projections. It expects PC shipments to rise by 9.3% to 385 million units this year as compared to the earlier projection of 10.5% growth.
Economic uncertainty in developed markets has led consumers to keep a tight rein on their expenses by not unnecessarily replacing their old PCs. PC makers would now have to largely rely on businesses to drive growth. According to Gartner, tablets such as iPad, have also impacted mobile growth. Tablets have caused consumers to delay their mobile purchases if not completely replace it.
?Consumer mobile PCs are no longer driving growth because of sharply declining consumer interest in mini-notebooks. Mini-notebook shipments have noticeably contracted over the last several quarters, and this has substantially reduced overall mobile PC unit growth,? said Ranjit Atwal, research director at Gartner. Also, business houses are looking more at mobile PCs rather than desk-based PCs.
PCs are now transitioning from one-size-fits-all to more specialised devices that can complement other devices. ?Moving forward, PCs will no longer be a market by themselves, but part of a larger device market that ranges from smart televisions to the most-basic-feature phones,? Atwal said.
Going forward, the PC market will be largely supported by businesses that are ready to replace their PCs. ?Businesses have begun replacing aging PCs more vigorously. We expect the growing urgency for businesses to migrate away from Windows XP will drive significant professional replacements,? Ralphael Vasquez, research analyst at Gartner said.
The recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan has made Gartner reduce its Japanese PC unit growth projections to 2.4%. Another leading research firm, IDC, in its recent report has predicted a slow growth of worldwide PC shipments to 4.2% in 2011. The forecast was cut from February’s predictions of 7.1%. IDC, too, shares the view that consumer interests are shifting to more portable devices with the same PC functions and more. ?Consumers are recognizing the value of owning and using multiple intelligent devices and because they already own PCs, they’re now adding smart phones, media tablets, and eReaders to their device collections,? said IDC vice-president, Bob O’Donnell.
According to IDC, desktop-based PCs are expected to show a negative growth of 5% in matured markets this year. In fact, matured markets will show a negative growth of 3.7% for the entire PC industry. Only emerging markets can expect a double digit growth of 18.2% in 2011 for portable PCs. IDC’s report states that the overall emerging markets growth for PCs in 2011 is pegged at 11.5%.
According to experts, Apple’s new development, iCloud, is definitely going to have a big impact on the already dwindling PC shipments. More and more consumers are bound to shift to a sleeker and smaller tablet version of PCs that can synchronise their mails, contacts, calendar and other applications seamlessly. According to Goldman Sachs, tablets will displace one in three PC sales in 2011. On one side we witnessed growing sales of iPad to 25 million units since launch and on the other side we saw PC sales dwindling gradually.
Advanced and portable handheld devices such as the iPad tablets have definitely affected PC sales badly and only the companies which understand this stark consumer shift early are likely to survive the race.