Global personal computer (PC) shipments fell 10.6% in the quarter ended in December compared to a year earlier.
This is according to market research firm IDC in its latest Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker. The firm says this is the largest decline since it started tracking PC shipments.
Worldwide PC shipments totalled 71.9 million units in the fourth quarter of 2015, a year-on-year decline of 10.6%, says IDC. Although total shipments were in line with already conservative expectations, the news nonetheless ended 2015 as the first year below 300 million units since 2008, it points out.
The holiday quarter achieved a modest uptick compared to the third quarter, but the year-on-year decline in 2015 shipments was, nevertheless, the largest in history, surpassing the decline of -9.8% in 2013, it notes.
IDC says the PC market continued to face persistent challenges from longer PC lifecycles and competition from mobile phones and tablets, despite the slowing growth in those markets. However, it adds, economic issues like falling commodity prices and weak international currencies, as well as social disruptions in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) and Asia-Pacific that disrupted foreign markets, were a larger factor for 2015.
The firm believes changes in the operating system (OS) market also had a significant impact, with the end of support for Windows XP and promotions of low-cost PCs driving a surge in replacements in 2014 that combined with the launch of Windows 10 and a free upgrade program to delay new system purchases in 2015.
Lastly, IDC notes, while some very attractive new PCs have been launched, the market is taking some time to respond to new OS and hardware configurations - deciding when to upgrade and evaluating slim, convertible, detachable, and touch variations versus more traditional PCs. Nevertheless, many of these products have received positive reviews and there's potential for a faster commercial transition to Windows 10 in 2016 than seen for prior versions of Windows.
"The PC market remains competitive and the economic environment weakened further with the recent drop in the Chinese stock market," says Loren Loverde, IDC vice-president, Worldwide PC Tracker.
"However, PC replacements should pick up again in 2016, particularly later in the year. Commercial adoption of Windows 10 is expected to accelerate, and consumer buying should also stabilise by the second half of the year. Most PC users have delayed an upgrade, but can only maintain this for so long before facing security and performance issues. We continue to believe that a majority of these users will purchase another PC, motivated by new products and attractive pricing."
In the EMEA region, IDC says as forecast, the region witnessed another quarter of double-digit year-over-year decline in PC shipments, as vendors remained engaged in clearing out the older inventories of Windows 8.
It points out the launch of new products with Windows 10 supported holiday season business, but did not reverse the negative trend.
Meanwhile, Gartner, a rival research firm, yesterday said worldwide PC shipments totalled 75.7 million units in the fourth quarter of 2015, an 8.3% decline from the fourth quarter of 2014.
"The fourth quarter of 2015 marked the fifth consecutive quarter of worldwide PC shipment decline," says Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner. "Holiday sales did not boost the overall PC shipments, hinting at changes to consumers' PC purchase behaviour. On the business side, Windows 10 generally received positive reviews, but as expected, Windows 10 migration was minor in the fourth quarter as many organisations were just starting their testing period," she adds.
"All regions registered a decrease in shipments. Currency devaluation issues continued to impact EMEA, Latin America and Japan," Kitagawa points out. "Collectively, EMEA, Japan and Latin America saw their markets reduced by nearly 10% in 2015."
Gartner's outlook for PC shipments in 2016 is for a decline of 1% compared with 2015, with the potential for a soft recovery in late 2016. Kitagawa says the PC market is still in the middle of structural change which will reduce the PC installed base in the next few years.
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