PC Decline Slowly Down To Single Digit Drops – Bottom Near?

Gartner analyst Tracy Tsai told The Wall Street Journal that the days of double-digit declines in personal-computer (PC) shipments could be coming to an end. She has predicted that PC shipments will continue to slow in the fourth quarter of 2013 to a 3 percent year-on-year drop, compared to an 8.6 percent decline noted in the third quarter. Next year, however, world-wide shipments should be roughly flat compared with this year, Ms. Tsai said.

The decline is at a much slower rate, Tsai said. The global economy is stabilizing. Also, there will be more lower-cost, aggressively priced two-in-one (tablet with a keyboard) devices that are being launched in the second half of this year, which should help demand.

This is great news for enthusiasts and those that work in the PC industry as the desktop PC was quickly falling from grace with no bottom in sight for a bit. The tablet onslaught caught many off-guard, but the desktop, notebook and ultrabook are far from dead. In October, Gartner said that combined desktop, notebook, and ultramobile shipments were on pace to top 321.6 million units in 2013, versus 184.4 million tablet shipments. In 2014, Gartner expects PC shipments to stay virtually flat with 321.4 million shipments, while tablets enjoy continued growth with 263.2 million shipments.

It is fairly likely that in the years to come that tablets won’t entirely replace a PC, but coexist with them. Most enthusiast own both a PC and a tablet and already use both as each have their strong and weak points. Hopefully the days of declining PC shipments are going to be coming to an end soon!