There’s a first time for everything. Recently several sources confirmed that for the first time in 11 years, PCs, including notebooks, netbooks and desktops, are steadily sloping down in sales. IDC's Worldwide PC Tracker noticed the third quarter shows an 8.6% dip and expects the year to finish off 3.8% less than last year in overall PC sales.
Craig Stice, senior principal analyst for computer systems at IHS, said in a company release, "There was great hope through the first half that 2012 would prove to be a rebound year for the PC market. Now three quarters through the year, the usual boost from the back-to-school season appears to be a bust... Optimism has vanished and turned to doubt, and the industry is now training its sights on 2013 to deliver the hoped-for rebound. All this is setting the PC market up for its first annual decline since the dot-com bust year of 2001."
"PCs are going through a severe slump," added Jay Chou, a senior research analyst with IDC. "The industry had already weathered a rough second quarter, and now the third quarter was even worse. A weak global economy as well as questions about PC market saturation and delayed replacement cycles are certainly a factor, but the hard question of what is the 'it' product for PCs remains unanswered. While Ultrabook prices have come down a little, there are still some significant challenges that will greet Windows 8 in the coming quarter."
"Retailers were conservative in placing orders as they responded to weak back-to-school sales," said Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner, "By the end of September, retailers were focused on clearing out inventory in advance of the Windows 8 launch later this month. On the professional side, there was minimum impact from Windows 8 in the quarter because the professional market will not adopt Windows 8 PCs immediately after the release."
The crunch PCs are currently feeling comes from purchases influenced by the portable generation. IHS’s forecast for tablet sales is that they will jump 90 percent to 124 million sales, or just over 35 percent of total PC sales this year. Smartphone sales already started surpassing those of traditional computers in 2010.
Mobile and smart devices are competing in the capacity and capability of traditional PCs but for a fraction of the price which is appealing to parents. Plus portable tech is cooler to kids than the clunky computers their parents use.
Piper Jaffray surveyed 7,700 teens and found that:
- 40 percent own iPhones (up from 34 percent six months ago).
- 62 percent plan to buy an iPhone in the next six months (22 percent said their next phone would run Android).
- 44 percent own a tablet (up from 36 percent six months ago).
- Of those who own tablets, 72 percent own iPads.
- Of those who do not own tablets, but plan to buy one in the next six months, 74 percent hope to buy an iPad.
- 43 percent said they’d be more likely to buy an iPad if Apple released a smaller version of the device at $299.
For kids today, interacting on a PC is like talking on a telephone tethered to the wall. It’s something strictly for emergencies. Schools are even shifting their focus away from desktops and laptops to portable learning devices as a standard.
PC companies planning on staying in business will have to shift their focus as well by producing better business machines and compact computers that can compete with current mobile alternatives.
Image courtesy of stockimages at FreeDigitalPhotos.
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