

IDC blames smartphones and tablets for sharp PC decline






Source: IDC

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PCs have matured
By TakinYourPoints on 4/11/2013 6:14:38 PM , Rating: 3
I posted about this in the Hon Hai thread yesterday. I reckon that this is a huge reason for their drop in income this quarter since they manufacture for almost every OEM out there.

Dell and others are so quick to jump on blaming Windows 8 for their troubles, but I don't think that's so simple. Windows 8 isn't very good but it doesn't do enough to explain the decline in hardware sales.

Its more important that PCs last much longer than they used to and everybody already has one. The time of bi-annual upgrades for consumers is over, that's it. I'm a hardcore PC gamer with a 2560x1440 display, and even I've been able to hang onto my 2009 i7 860 for three and a half years (GPU upgrade to a GTX 680 is the only upgrade I made a year ago).

I'm an edge case situation and even I haven't had much reason to upgrade. Even more gamers are happy hanging onto their old Core Duos and Quads.

Now, consider that gamers make up a niche of PC sales. If your average user or business (the bulk of PC sales) are fine with their older equipment, and they're also better served by portable electronics like smartphones and tablets that do many of the same thing they use their PC for (web, email, etc), it does a lot to explain why PC sales have slowed so much.

