Worldwide PC Shipments Show 5.7 percent decline in Q3-2016
Worldwide PC shipments totaled 68.9 million units in the third quarter of 2016, a 5.7 percent decline from the third quarter of 2015, according to preliminary results by Gartner, Inc. This was the eighth consecutive quarter of PC shipment decline, the longest duration of decline in the history of the PC industry.
PC manufacturers faced many challenges, which included weak back-to-school demand, and ongoing low demand in the consumer market, especially in emerging markets.
"There are two fundamental issues that have impacted PC market results: the extension of the lifetime of the PC caused by the excess of consumer devices, and weak PC consumer demand in emerging markets," said Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner. "According to our 2016 personal technology survey, the majority of consumers own, and use, at least three different types of devices in mature markets. Among these devices, the PC is not a high priority device for the majority of consumers, so they do not feel the need to upgrade their PCs as often as they used to. Some may never decide to upgrade to a PC again.
The PC market continues to consolidate, as the top six vendors combined for a record high 78 percent of PC shipments in the third quarter of 2016 (see Table 1). Lenovo continued to be the worldwide market leader based on preliminary PC shipments, but HP Inc. is nearly tied for this top spot, and these rankings could change when final shipment results are published. Lenovo has recorded six consecutive quarters of year-over-year shipment declines, while the nearest competitors, HP Inc. and Dell, have recorded shipment growth since the second quarter of 2016.
The stabilization of the PC business market was a key factor for HP Inc.'s shipment growth, as a majority of its revenue was generated from the business segment. Dell's shipment growth exceeded the regional average in most regions.
In the United States, PC shipments totaled 16.2 million units in the third quarter, a 0.3 percent decline from the same period last year (see Table 2). This is the second consecutive quarter of flat year-over-year PC shipment growth.
"Mobile PCs, which include notebooks, two-in-one PCs and Windows tablets, showed low-single-digit year-over-year growth, but the overall results were offset by a decline of desktop shipments," Ms. Kitagawa said. "Traditionally, the third quarter has been driven by back-to-school PC sales, but back-to-school marketing campaigns have become less effective for driving PC sales. With so many PCs already in the consumer market, U.S. consumers do not feel the need to buy new PCs; many parents hand down old PCs to their kids. While our PC shipment report does not include Chromebooks, our early indicator shows that Chromebooks exceeded PC shipment growth."
Asia/Pacific PC shipments totaled 24.7 million units in the third quarter of 2016, a 7.6 percent decline from the third quarter of 2016. Early indicators show that the PC vendors performed better than in the second quarter as they lowered channel inventory coming into the quarter and replenished stock for seasonal back-to-school demand. PC shipments in China are estimated to have declined 4.8 percent. Consumer sales in China were driven by notebook shipments, while the business market was driven by desktop PCs because of cost and computing effectiveness.
PC shipments in EMEA surpassed 19.2 million units in the third quarter of 2016, a 3.3 percent decline from the same period last year. The EMEA market's decline was mainly associated with very weak demand in Eastern Europe, Eurasia, and the Middle East and Africa. In the U.K., Brexit had no immediate impact on PC sales, but the depreciation of the British pound against the U.S. dollar caused some vendors to indicate prices will increase through the end of 2016 and into 2017.
These results are preliminary. Final statistics will be available soon to clients of Gartner's PC Quarterly Statistics Worldwide by Region program. This program offers a comprehensive and timely picture of the worldwide PC market, allowing product planning, distribution, marketing and sales organizations to keep abreast of key issues and their future implications around the globe.
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Senior Member
Posts: 813
Joined: 2009-11-30
i believe the impact is not only to pre-build PC but more to overall pc hardware sales
the main reason obviously lack performance improvement (cpu) over last few years which holding people upgrading
when people dont upgrade cpu -> they also dont upgrade mobo + ram most of time ... so it rather linked together
probably only gpu and storage sales still stable
Senior Member
Posts: 1250
Joined: 2012-05-22
A lot of this has to do with the crap economy the past 7 years where the average person hasn't seen wage increases and where the only people making money are in the stock market which itself has only done well because the Federal Reserve has been printing upwards of $40 billion per month which in the long run will cause massive inflation. The fact of the matter is the United States has been in recession for 7 years and i dont care about the fake GDP numbers showing 1-2% growth each year because its a fact that in 2010 the Obama Adminstration altered the way GDP is calculated which most experts at the time said would add an additional 1-3% to GDP figures.
And while this thread is discussing global sales, the fact of the matter is many other governments are printing money as well. The EU has lowered interest rates so low that some countries have cooked up a scheme to have negative interest rates. While i know people wont like hearing this, they need to be aware because in the end this will all end badly.
Senior Member
Posts: 7113
Joined: 2004-10-01
There are many reasons.
1) Tablets and portables have largely taken over for small tasks such as web browsing, emailing, netflix and mobile games. More people have invested in this form factor over workstations, which makes perfect sense since most people don't need or want a standalone tower. Even laptops are made obsolete for basic stuff in many cases.
2) Economy: People are spending less on items that are simply "nice to have" and buying more toward what they need to conserve money. when you tack on #1 above and realize how much cheaper it is to get a tablet to do 80% of what you were doing on your PC, its pretty self-explanitory
3) the people who still do purchase workstations for design, gaming, multimedia etc have seen pre-builts become more costly over the years while not offering the best in terms of value or performance. With videos and guides literally all over the internet, people have just taken to build their own systems for less money which end up being far better than any pre-built.
I expect to see the numbers dive even more, probably more in the enterprise sector once more companies leverage virtualized systems. The pricing in the enterprise sector for workstations that I have seen have been extortionate for what you get.. I don't see many companies continuing to support it frankly.
Senior Member
Posts: 344
Joined: 2007-02-15
the main reason obviously lack performance improvement (cpu) over last few years which holding people upgrading
A lot of people are holding in till Cannonlake. There's no real need to trow money away right now. Also games are still just console ports. There hasn't been much power needed those last year. Just some games here and there but nothing worth throwing thousands of euros away.
Junior Member
Posts: 13
Joined: 2014-12-10
i guess it's kind of normal also. buying a pre-built pc is SOO expensive for what you get compared to making your own build. for 2000$ "CDN" you get a O.K pre-built PC. but for 2000$ i can BUILD a REALLY good pc :S