The state of the PC hardware industry keeps on getting worse. Earlier this month, both IDC and Gartner released their numbers and statistics regarding PC shipments for the second quarter of 2013.
And just as everyone feared, they painted a pretty depressing figure.
PC shipments recorded a double digit decline, falling around 11 percent in the second quarter of the year. And now IDC seems to believe that the largest number of PC shipments worldwide actually happened two years back — the peak was reached in 2011.
Computerworld is reporting IDC a saying that in the third quarter of 2011, 96.1 million PCs shipped worldwide. Since then, it has been a downwards trend, and the decline has continued every quarter, every year.
According to Bob O’Donnell, an analyst over at IDC:
“It’s very possible that that was the peak.”
Having said that, most analysts are still debating whether or not the shipments will bottom out and then go higher, or instead continue dropping years into the future. Generally, most seem confident that the PC business will make some sort of recovery in the future.
Though obviously, this has been predicted for a while — without materializing.
This, quite likely, is one of the main reasons why Steve Ballmer decided to reorganize Microsoft and consolidated all of its operating system teams under one division headed by former Windows Phone chief, Terry Myerson.
This strategy of putting its operating system businesses together can ensure that Microsoft can offset the decline of the PC businesses with notable gains coming from the mobile segment.
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It is interesting to note that the IDC said the peak was in 2011. The first generation of iPad was launched in April of 2010 and the second iPad generation was launched, March 2011. It is easy to understand then why millions of people chose a device (limited since it was not a real laptop), costing 1/3 or 1/2 the price of a laptop. I think this was the trend which the PC world has suffered from.
But now with the Surface and Win 8.1, hopefully Microsoft has a chance to leapfrog iPad sales and appeal to those users who have grown tired of carrying 2 devices (iPad for fun and a laptop to do work). They have had to pay Apple a premium price for two when now they can purchase a Surface (or other OEM) device that can do it all BUT be 1/2 or 1/3 the cost of two Apple devices.