Windows 10 release can’t come soon enough for collapsing PC market

The only real success story comes from Apple: not only was it the only company in IDC’s charts to show growth, it’s extremely healthy growth: a 16.1 per cent increase in shipments year-on-year to 5.1 million, boosting its overall market share from 5.9 per cent to 7.8 per cent and propelling it into fourth place above Acer (6.6 per cent) and Asus (6.5 per cent).

The personal computer (PC) business, under siege for so long because of the rise of smartphone use, took another hit, according to industry research firm IDC.

Both IDC and Gartner have released the latest PC shipment data for the second quarter of 2015 showing Lenovo as the leading PC vendor.

Smartphones and solid-state drives (SSDs) will continue to drive semiconductor market growth, while the traditional PC segment will experience the greatest decline, with production units down 8.7 percent in 2015, slightly weaker than the previous quarter’s forecast.

Loverde said that manufacturers may not see much of a bump either from the launch of Windows 10 later this month. Analysts emphasized that these inhibitors are temporary events, and they are not changing the PC market’s structure. “The price hike could hinder PC demand in these regions”. Gartner attributed the slow market in Q2 to higher prices as a result of the stronger dollar, a strong Q2 past year due to the Windows XP upgrade cycle, and customers waiting for the launch of Windows 10 in Q3. After the XP impact was phased out, there have not been any major growth drivers to stimulate a PC refresh. Lastly, the Windows 10 launch scheduled for the third quarter of 2015 has created self-regulated inventory control. EMEA, Latin America and Japan were tough regions for Lenovo, as the company experienced double-digit shipment declines.

Gartner noted that Dell’s PC shipment fall was “relatively moderate” in EMEA compared with Lenovo and HP, possibly due partly to its lower presence in the consumer space, which meant it was shielded from the worst of the Windows 10 prelaunch inventory control.

Now what: Any company that depends on PC sales is going to have a rough time this year, assuming the PC market behaves like IDC is predicting.

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.

“Despite inventory controls for the Windows 10 launch, mobile PC shipments grew in the quarter, which resulted in five consecutive quarters of mobile PC growth in the United States”. It said 66.1 million units shipped worldwide in Q2 2015 – analysts had expected more than that to shift and thought we would have seen a decline of about 10 per cent. PC shipments in EMEA totaled 18.6 million units, a 15.7 percent decline from the second quarter of 2014, and Asia/Pacific PC shipments reached 24.2 million units, a 2.9 percent decline from the same period past year.