infoTECH Feature

August 29, 2014

Global PC Shipments Expected to Remain Steady Despite Rise of Tablets and Smartphones

Today's tablets are now incredibly powerful, and fill much of the same roles that laptop computers were best suited for only a few years ago. As the technology to make them improves, so does their power level, as well as capabilities. Because of this, the sale of personal computers is slowly beginning to dwindle – although not quite as fast as you may expect given the sales figures of mobile devices. The International Data Corporation (IDC (News - Alert)) expects that global shipments will decline this year, but only by around 3.7 percent as opposed to the projected 6 percent.

According to the IDC, much of the support for the PC market will come from Google (News - Alert)'s Chromebooks as well as upgrades to the Windows XP operating system.

The Chromebook computers are popular due to their simplicity. Only having access to Google Chrome and Google Drive may limit the computers do basic tasks, but these make up a vast majority of what people need a laptop computer for anyways. Today's definition of a simple computer task is much broader than yesterday's, which means that these computers will remain popular (particularly within the education sector).

Even though the Windows XP OS is aging, computers running it are being upgraded in significant numbers. Unfortunately, the replacement cycle of upgrading Windows XP computers has finite resources, and the driver will ultimately lose favor.

Despite the fact that Microsoft (News - Alert) is rumored to be working on a new OS (Windows 9), PC sales are likely to continue in their decline as they are reserved for more obscure complicated tasks. The IDC predicts that worldwide PC shipments will drop to 291.1 million by 2018, which is far below this year’s predicted 303.5 million units sold.




Edited by Maurice Nagle
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