PC Sales finally staziliae in the year 2016, according to IDC
According to IDC, the worldwide PC shipments in the year 2016 registered only 5.4% of negative growth while it was just 1.4% down in final quarter. This is showing that the PCs are recovering from the tablet PC onslaught that happened earlier this decade. The day is not too far when we start seeing PC sales in green as more and more buyers are opting with 2-in-1s and convertible notebooks over tablets with limited funcionality. As expected, Lenovo managed to keep the lead at the top and HP came in close second.
The annual shipments of PCs slipped to 260 million units in 2016 and that is down by 5.7%. The best performing regions were mature regions (Japan, Canada etc). United States registered decline and other regions registerd stable performance.
“The fourth quarter results reinforce our expectations for market stabilization, and even some recovery,” said Loren Loverde, vice president, Personal Computing Trackers & Forecasting. “The contraction in traditional PC shipments experienced over the past five years finally appears to be giving way as users move to update systems. We have a good opportunity for traditional PC growth in commercial markets, while the consumer segment should also improve as it feels less pressure from slowing phone and tablet markets.”
“The U.S. PC market was able to pull off a strong last quarter of the year with impressive growth in the retail PC segment that surpassed expectations,” said Neha Mahajan, senior research analyst, Devices & Displays. “Although this might signal regained consumer confidence in the PC market, with most of the sales being driven by aggressive promotions in the holiday season, it needs to be seen how much of the real demand is carried forward in the coming quarters.”
Coming to market share of PC vendors, Apple has managed to slightly claw back and take fourth spot from ASUS. Dell turned out to be the one with highest increase in share % and stayed in 3rd place while HP took second and is ‘almost there’ to overtake Lenovo.
