While Microsoft still believes that the performance of Windows 8 is very much in line with what Windows 7 recorded in its first few months on the market, analysts paint a different picture.
According to market studies, Microsoft’s latest and greatest has failed to spur demand for PC products in various countries around the world, leading to an overall decline in shipments.
Now whether you believe pegging the performance of the operating system to hardware sales is another matter, but that’s a discussion for another day. For now, however, market watchers are comfortably attaching the performance of Windows 8 to desktop and notebook shipments.
The newest study in this regard comes from IDC. The research firm has just put out its numbers for the Middle East and African region for the first quarter of 2013 — and the local market is said to have recorded a 14.1 percent decline on a year-to-year basis.
Fouad Rafiq Charakla, the research manager for personal computing, systems, and infrastructure solutions at IDC Middle East, Africa, and Turkey (wowzers!) noted in a statement:
“Since adding the touch-screen interface hikes up the price of a PC by a considerable margin, the majority of PCs shipped presently still lack touch-enabled screens.
This has had the consequence of preventing the operating system from delivering to end users the user experience it is capable of, thus causing the demand for PCs to slow down.”
The report reveals that PC shipments fell to 5.3 million units. Desktop computers made up 2 million, while notebooks accounted for the 3.3 million units. In fact, the notebook market itself recorded a drop of 11.2 percent.
Windows 8 was widely expected to provide a boost to the faltering hardware sales, and IDC says that the lack of touchscreen devices led meant that the OS failed to make any difference.
