Windows 10 to the rescue?
When it comes to the PC market, analysts tend to err on the side of gloom and doom. We wondered if that would still be the case once Windows 10 released to the public, and though it's been installed on 75 million devices to date, at least one market research firm is predicting an ongoing decline in PC shipments.
International Data Corporation (IDC) is forecasting that worldwide PC shipments will slip in the neighborhood of 8.7 percent in 2015, and if true, that would make five consecutive years of declining growth.
Why the negative outlook? IDC points out that even though vendors have been preparing for Windows 10 systems in the second half of the year, the shrinkage is related to a "stubbornly large inventory of notebooks from prior quarters and severe constraints posed by the decline of major currencies relative to the U.S. dollar."
Even so, IDC predicts a combined 281.6 million portable and desktop PC shipments in 2015. In other words, don't read too much into the accompanying rhetoric -- the PC market is by no means dead or dying.
Looking ahead, IDC believes growth will resume in 2017 led by the commercial market, albeit not by leaps and bounds -- the research firms forecasts 282.1 million in 2019, up half a million from the end of this year.
In years past, any decline in PC shipments was typically blamed on the market's infatuation with tablets. That's no longer the case. IDC sees the tablet market declining 8 percent in 2015. IDC clumps 2-in-1 devices in with tablets, though notes that detachables are are "starting to gain traction.
"While the 2-in-1 form factor is not new, OEMs are getting more serious about this market and as a result IDC expects the 2-in-1 segment to grow 86.5 percent year over year in 2015 with 14.7 million units shipped," IDC said.
It's worth noting that IDC doesn't include 2-in-1 devices with detachable keyboards in the portable PC category. That includes the Surface Pro, which Microsoft pitches as a tablet that can replace a laptop.
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