The PC market has started off 2016 quite poorly according to both Gartner and the IDC. Worldwide shipments have fallen 9.6 percent to 64.8 million units in the first quarter of the year, according to Garner’s estimates. This makes it the first quarter since 2007 that fewer than 65 million PCs have shipped globally.
Lenovo, HP, Dell, Asus and Apple were the top PC manufacturers in Q1 2016 with only Asus and Apple seeing an increase in the number of units shipped. Lenovo and HP have been hit the hardest this quarter with Lenovo shipments down seven percent and HP’s down nine percent.
The International Data Corporation (IDC) is estimating that the worldwide PC shipments are actually lower than Gartner’s estimate and have dropped 11.5 percent to 60.6 million units during Q1. The company also differs from Gartner in that its results see Lenovo, HP, Dell, Apple and Asus as the top five vendors during the quarter. IDC paints a much gloomier picture of global PC shipments and all of its top PC vendors are in the red, with Asus down eight percent and even Apple down two percent.
The strength of the US dollar is one of the main reasons that PC shipments have continued to decline according to Gartner. The firm also notes that many companies experienced an inventory build up as a result of sales offered during the holidays in the fourth quarter of 2015.
Another big factor in declining PC shipments is enterprise adoption of Windows 10. Many companies have yet to fully embrace the latest iteration of Windows and are merely test driving it to see if it will be a meaningful upgrade for their businesses.
Windows 10 may no longer be offered as a free upgrade come July 29 2016 and this could entice users who have yet to switch to do so albeit through purchasing new hardware. In 2016, we will learn without a doubt how Windows 10 will affect worldwide PC sales.
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