Researcher slows PC sales growth prediction
Consumers tighten belts
Market watcher Gartner has reduced its forecast for the degree of growth it expects the global PC market to experience this year - largely thanks to a slowdown in consumer spending.
PC shipments will grow 9.3 per cent this year, Gartner now reckons, not 10.5 per cent.
That's 4m fewer machines: 385m shipping rather than 389m.
Consumer mobile PCs are no longer driving growth, it said, because of "sharply declining consumer interest" in netbooks.
"Mini-notebook shipments have noticeably contracted over the last several quarters, and this has substantially reduced overall mobile PC unit growth," said Ranjit Atwal, a Gartner research director.
Tablets are partly to blame: punters are buying them not instead of netbooks and notebooks, but fondleslab purchases are slowing the already slow consumer upgrade cycle.
But if they're not replacing kit as quickly as they might have done, businesses are, after an upgrade cycle slowdown of their own, induced by the recession. ®
COMMENTS
Ermmm
"Previously hardware manufacturers could trust that MS would aid them in sales. But MS has it's own fights on it's hands now, and can't sacrifice itself to aid them. It's a time for the big OEM's to step up and actually make things more individual, more life style fitting. And more appealing to Joe Public to give them a reason to open their wallets. While much of this is fashion related, it sadly now plays quiet a big part in purchases, and as such time for the OEM's to do something unique now."
Bit like Apple then........
Been coming for many years
There is quiet a good reason for it all though. Namely no one needs the kit that's being made these days. While the i5 and i7 are great CPU's, the old issue that had everyone upgrading due to a new version of Window's is no longer a sales factor. MS had to get competitive with speed of the OS after Vista, and has been improving greatly. But the issue is users don't need to upgrade hardware any more. A 5 year old C2D will quiet happily run everything out there today as it did when it was new. And MS confirmed Win8 will have lower hardware requirements than Win7, so the issue is not going to improve for hardware manufacturers any time soon...and also general channel sales. What hardware we have now is "good enough" and short of the few users doing HD video and such, the latest hardware is pretty much irrelevant to them.
Throw in economic issues, general market saturation, and home users doing so little on a machine these days other than Facebook, the need for users to go out and buy a new system is now getting almost none existent.
Previously hardware manufacturers could trust that MS would aid them in sales. But MS has it's own fights on it's hands now, and can't sacrifice itself to aid them. It's a time for the big OEM's to step up and actually make things more individual, more life style fitting. And more appealing to Joe Public to give them a reason to open their wallets. While much of this is fashion related, it sadly now plays quiet a big part in purchases, and as such time for the OEM's to do something unique now.
Just Odd
I have installed and/or upgraded more networks over the last couple of months than I have in the last year+ with my clients - something I'm not understanding due to the amount of businesses that have gone bankrupt just in the last six months in this area.
I know I am glad for it - struggling like hell atm to keep the lights on - but it doesn't look good for the near future...... no matter what His Presidency says.
Err, what?
PC Sales-growth prediction could probably have done with being slowed anyway, but how did one researcher manage that?
