PC boom is over as tablets and smartphones take over, says IDC

New forecasts point to drop in worldwide PC shipments as emerging markets lose interest in favour of newer ways of connecting to internet

Thing of the past? Customers surf the internet on PCs in a cafe in Beijing. Emerging markets will see drops in PC sales. Photograph: Greg Baker/AP

The PC boom is over, and the business will never regain the peaks that it saw in 2011 when more than 359m were shipped worldwide, says research company IDC.

In a downward revision of its forecast for this year's PC business, it says that total shipments will fall by 9.7% compared to 2012, and will continue to drift down at least until 2017.
The culprits are smartphones, especially in emerging markets, and tablets, together with economic woes both in the west and some emerging markets.
The key to the drop is that emerging markets, and particularly China, will see double-digit declines in shipments as both first-time and upgrading users turn to tablets and smartphones.

End of the boom: annual worldwide PC shipments since 1998, and forecast to 2017. Source: IDC

For PC makers such as Dell and HP, which have not been able to break into the mobile markets at any substantial level, the fall in shipments is having a dramatic effect on their business. The effect is more marked in the consumer market, which is down 20% year-on-year in some areas, than the business market, where companies have begun to install Windows 7 on a large scale ahead of the end of support for Windows XP - first released in 2001 - next April.

The dropoff could have long-term implications for Microsoft's Windows business, formerly one of its most valuable monopolies.

For consumers, the rise of tablets has produced a new refresh cycle which directly subtracts from PC makers' revenues.

"The new forecast reflects not only a continued expansion of mobile device options at the expense of PCs, but also marked the cessation of emerging market growth that the industry had come to rely on in recent years," IDC said.

IDC has repeatedly revised its forecast for PC shipments downwards since early 2010, according to data collated by the Guardian. In June 2011, its forward forecast reckoned that total shipments for 2013 would hit 438.5m.

But the rapid rise especially of tablets has eaten into that - so that it now reckons this year's total will hit 315.4m, a 28% cut from that older forecast.

In June 2011, it was forecasting that by 2015 total world PC shipments would rise to 541.5m. Now, it reckons the total will instead be 318.2m - a 41% cut on its earlier expectation.

 

 IDC forecasts for PC and tablet shipments, 2010-2017. Each column is a forecast from a later date. Click for larger version

 The figures include desktop, netbook, and other laptops including ultrabooks and "convertibles" which can act as a tablet and PC, but don't include purely handheld devices or tablets such as the iPad.

IDC tempered its tablet forecast for 2013 after the slow second quarter, from a total of 227.4m units rather than 229.3 - a cut of less than 1% - but added that "despite the slight reduction for this year, the market will continue to grow at a rapid pace and by 2017 IDC expects worldwide shipments to be nearly 407m units." That would compare with a forecast of 319.8m PCs for that year.

IDC repeated its previous criticism of Microsoft's Windows 8's usability - and the parallel rise of tablets - for driving some of the changes. "The days where one can assume tablet disruptions are purely a First World problem are over," said Jay Chou, senior research analyst at IDC. "Advances in PC hardware, such as improvements in the power efficiency of [Intel] x86 processors remain encouraging, and Windows 8.1 is also expected to address a number of well-documented concerns. However, the current PC usage experience falls short of meeting changing usage patterns that are spreading through all regions, especially as tablet price and performance become ever more attractive."

TOA MAONI YAKO HAPA CHINI