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Worldwide PC Shipments Declined 5.7 Percent in Q3-2016: Gartner

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Worldwide PC shipments totaled 68.9 million units in the third quarter of 2016, a 5.7 percent decline from the third quarter of 2015, according to preliminary results by Gartner, Inc. This was the eighth consecutive quarter of PC shipment decline, the longest duration of decline in the history of the PC industry. PC manufacturers faced many challenges, which included weak back-to-school demand, and ongoing low demand in the consumer market, especially in emerging markets.

"There are two fundamental issues that have impacted PC market results: the extension of the lifetime of the PC caused by the excess of consumer devices, and weak PC consumer demand in emerging markets," said Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner. "According to our 2016 personal technology survey, the majority of consumers own, and use, at least three different types of devices in mature markets. Among these devices, 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. Some may never decide to upgrade to a PC again.



"In emerging markets, PC penetration is low, but consumers are not keen to own PCs. Consumers in emerging markets primarily use smartphones or phablets for their computing needs, and they don't find the need to use a PC as much as consumers in mature markets."

The PC market continues to consolidate, as the top six vendors combined for a record high 78 percent of PC shipments in the third quarter of 2016 (see Table 1). Lenovo continued to be the worldwide market leader based on preliminary PC shipments, but HP Inc. is nearly tied for this top spot, and these rankings could change when final shipment results are published. Lenovo has recorded six consecutive quarters of year-over-year shipment declines, while the nearest competitors, HP Inc. and Dell, have recorded shipment growth since the second quarter of 2016.

The stabilization of the PC business market was a key factor for HP Inc.'s shipment growth, as a majority of its revenue was generated from the business segment. Dell's shipment growth exceeded the regional average in most regions.

In the United States, PC shipments totaled 16.2 million units in the third quarter, a 0.3 percent decline from the same period last year (see Table 2). This is the second consecutive quarter of flat year-over-year PC shipment growth.

"Mobile PCs, which include notebooks, two-in-one PCs and Windows tablets, showed low-single-digit year-over-year growth, but the overall results were offset by a decline of desktop shipments," Ms. Kitagawa said. "Traditionally, the third quarter has been driven by back-to-school PC sales, but back-to-school marketing campaigns have become less effective for driving PC sales. With so many PCs already in the consumer market, U.S. consumers do not feel the need to buy new PCs; many parents hand down old PCs to their kids. While our PC shipment report does not include Chromebooks, our early indicator shows that Chromebooks exceeded PC shipment growth."

Asia/Pacific PC shipments totaled 24.7 million units in the third quarter of 2016, a 7.6 percent decline from the third quarter of 2016. Early indicators show that the PC vendors performed better than in the second quarter as they lowered channel inventory coming into the quarter and replenished stock for seasonal back-to-school demand. PC shipments in China are estimated to have declined 4.8 percent. Consumer sales in China were driven by notebook shipments, while the business market was driven by desktop PCs because of cost and computing effectiveness.

PC shipments in EMEA surpassed 19.2 million units in the third quarter of 2016, a 3.3 percent decline from the same period last year. The EMEA market's decline was mainly associated with very weak demand in Eastern Europe, Eurasia, and the Middle East and Africa. In the U.K., Brexit had no immediate impact on PC sales, but the depreciation of the British pound against the U.S. dollar caused some vendors to indicate prices will increase through the end of 2016 and into 2017.

These results are preliminary. Final statistics will be available soon to clients of Gartner's PC Quarterly Statistics Worldwide by Region program. This program offers a comprehensive and timely picture of the worldwide PC market, allowing product planning, distribution, marketing and sales organizations to keep abreast of key issues and their future implications around the globe.

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"There are two fundamental issues that have impacted PC market results: the extension of the lifetime of the PC caused by the excess of consumer devices, and weak PC consumer demand in emerging markets,"

odd how the fact that a PC built today and a PC built 5 years ago aren't significantly different in speed isn't a factor.
 
odd how the fact that a PC built today and a PC built 5 years ago aren't significantly different in speed isn't a factor.

The two listed are probably more significant. In my experience, people/companies upgrade their machines anyway (even if they could just reformat the entire thing for the same effect) or don't bother and just buy a(nother) new tablet instead.
 
odd how the fact that a PC built today and a PC built 5 years ago aren't significantly different in speed isn't a factor.
That's true for desktops, but for laptops and tablets there is a HUGE difference for the 5 years time difference.
 
And yet another article about the decline of the PC. While it's perfectly accurate and true, it's besides the point. People don't buy pre-built complete PC's. People buy parts. That's where all the money is. The PC market is thriving (as it's always been), video cards and mobo's are selling like hotcakes, cpu's not so much due to the lack of solid competition (Zen please?), peripherals are doing extremely well (with something new coming out on a daily basis) and custom aftermarket parts for pimping out you rig are growing in popularity. And companies dont upgrade to new PC's as often as they used to. A PC from 5 years ago runs Office 2016 just fine.
So PC shipments declined? Fine. Whatever. But PC Market overall is doing OK.
 
Correction, OEM PC shipments from the polled companies are down. Boutique and custom PC sales have never been stronger and it's plain to see that with more and more companies creating PC parts and accessories that the market has never been healthier.

The only thing these OEM numbers tell us is that people don't want to deal with the crap OEMs put them through.
 
They always say how PC sales are down and yet everyone still has a PC. Then again, market is saturated. You can't expect sales to just increase forever. There is always a point when you saturate the market and then it'll slow down as people don't feel the need to upgrade every 2 years. My last system last me for 5 or 6 years. Then again I was constantly fiddling with it, mostly with new graphic cards. Just the core platform was the same, the X58. Expecting no less from X99 to last just as long, especially since I future proofed it with a speedy hexacore. Just like I did with Core i7 920 back then which was considered as fastest quad core of that time (the series, not the particular model itself, though it overclocked nicely to speeds of top end models).
 
That's true for desktops, but for laptops and tablets there is a HUGE difference for the 5 years time difference.
do not think it is so HUGE (Trump expression)...
I have i3-2350m (year 2011 - Sandy Bridge), when new gen comes out I always check and lets take latest i3-6100h (year 2016 - Skylake) - it is +40% of CPU performance, but frequency is increased by +20%, so in real world (when heat or battery life kicks in) that frequency will be throtelled off in a heartbeat... in other words - no way I am gonna change anythime soon. only reason tho change would be a nvme m.2 slot, but as I have i3 - I upgraded to cheap sata ssd and really got second life in that old laptop. imagine we would be talking about 5 year old laptop like in year 2010. - it would not even be funny how outdated and slow 5year old laptop would be.
 
That's true for desktops, but for laptops and tablets there is a HUGE difference for the 5 years time difference.

Not for laptops. Well maybe at the mid-highend as far as weight and battery life go, but not otherwise. IGPs are faster, but gaming is not a big part of it anyway.
 
do not think it is so HUGE (Trump expression)...
I have i3-2350m (year 2011 - Sandy Bridge), when new gen comes out I always check and lets take latest i3-6100h (year 2016 - Skylake) - it is +40% of CPU performance, but frequency is increased by +20%, so in real world (when heat or battery life kicks in) that frequency will be throtelled off in a heartbeat... in other words - no way I am gonna change anythime soon. only reason tho change would be a nvme m.2 slot, but as I have i3 - I upgraded to cheap sata ssd and really got second life in that old laptop. imagine we would be talking about 5 year old laptop like in year 2010. - it would not even be funny how outdated and slow 5year old laptop would be.

Not for laptops. Well maybe at the mid-highend as far as weight and battery life go, but not otherwise. IGPs are faster, but gaming is not a big part of it anyway.

You guys are right actually. I have a Dell XPS1710 from 2016 with Core Duo and full HD screen that kicks like in the first day. I'm using XP on it, but that's because of stupid nVidia and M$ who are not providing legacy drivers for the GTX 7950 card (yeah, I know...). :)
 
My current laptop came with 780m sli, I upgraded it to 970m sli. I extended the life of my laptop for another 1.5 years for about $90 when I sold the old gpu and bought the new gpu. Laptop graphics card really keep their value. It still has the same processor but I wont upgrade that.

Very soon I am going to get a new laptop with a desktop processor and a nvidia 1070 that hopefully might be upgraded further. Sell both 970m's, go install a single 780m from ebay for cheap, sell old laptop and dual 970m's. All together the upgrade will cost me about $300 after all parts are sold. I would say not a bad deal.

Gaming laptop are growing in popularity.
 
You guys are right actually. I have a Dell XPS1710 from 2016 with Core Duo and full HD screen that kicks like in the first day. I'm using XP on it, but that's because of stupid nVidia and M$ who are not providing legacy drivers for the GTX 7950 card (yeah, I know...). :)
you mean 2006? i'm curious if you can game on that.
 
Thank you Intel and nVidia for your big contribution in that, all other pc parts price s being dcreasing except yours, same cpu with same price over last 5-6 years with different names, while nvidia s being making XX% better GPUs with XX% increased price, fooling people with bs products like ti, titans, tits ..fps/money ratio has being the same last 3-4 years
 
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