PC sales slump ahead of Windows 10
Gartner Research said the 9.5 per cent slump from Q2 2014's 75.5 million PCs sold to Q2 2015's 68.4 million was due to US dollar price hikes, the end of the XP-migration boom (Microsoft terminated support for the 14 year old operating system last year, and forced customers to migrate) and the remainder of customers avoiding the catastrophic Windows 8 flop, while waiting for Windows 10 to launch on July 29.
Attempts to clear inventory with Windows 8 on it have not been successful.
APAC PC shipments declined by 2.9 per cent across the same period, this includes both portable and desktop computers.
"The price hike of PCs became more apparent in some regions due to a sharp appreciation of the U.S. dollar against local currencies," Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner.
"Secondly, the worldwide PC market experienced unusually positive desk-based growth last year due to the end of Windows XP support. 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 3Q15 has created self-regulated inventory control. PC vendors and the channels tried clearing inventory as much as possible before the Windows 10 launch."
Lenovo remains the world's largest PC supplier, upping its market share to 19.7 per cent, HP stayed flat at 17.4 per cent, Dell grew from 13.3 per cent to 14 per cent, while Asus and Acer dropped to 6.8 and 6.7 per cent respectively, from 2Q 2014 figures of 6.9 and 7.6 per cent.
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Gartner's analysts reiterated that these problems are temporary, and are not changing the PC market's structure. While the PC industry is going through a decline, the market is expected to go back to slow and steady growth in 2016.
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