IDC says fourth-quarter PC shipments fell 10.6% year-on-year

[ShintaiDK]

http://techreport.com/news/29593/idc-says-fourth-quarter-pc-shipments-fell-10-6-year-on-year

Almost hardly newsworthy anymore, but rather part of normality. Q4 results are coming up tomorrow and forward tho.

IDC has released its PC shipment figures for the fourth quarter of 2015, and the numbers continue to shrink. The research firm says worldwide PC shipments totalled 71.9 million units in the final quarter of last year, a decline of 10.9% compared to the same time in 2014. IDC says that's the largest year-on-year decline it's ever recorded, and it also says 2015 is the first year the industry shipped fewer than 300 million units since 2008.

Combine this with Apples Q1 30% production reduction and Samsungs warnings. 2016 looks like the beginning to the end for semiconductor growth. The only growth left is datacenter/cloud and IoT.

 

[Burpo]

Seems like a hastily thrown together botched article by TechReport..

"According to IDC's worldwide Q4 shipment figures, Lenovo remained the world's largest PC company with a 21.4% market share. HP is close behind with a 19.9% share, while Dell sits in third place with 14.1% of units shipped. Asus and Apple tied for fourth place with 7.9% of shipments. Other companies account for the remaining 28.7% of the pie.

In the United States, HP led Q4 shipments with a 28.1% slice. Dell shipped 23.9% of US PCs, while Apple moved 12.1% and Asus tallied up 7.1%. Other companies brought up the rear with 15.6% of all systems shipped."

Where's Lenovo in the US figures?
The figures for the US market don't include Lenovo, and don't tally 100%..

Edit: From the real IDC report..

"United States – HP retained its lead in the U.S. PC market with a 28.1% share, while Dell held the second position with a 23.9% share. Apple, which continues to buck the trend of an eroding consumer PC market, leveraged the consumer-heavy holiday season to retake third place with a 12.7% share. Lenovo continued its aggressive growth trajectory. Its 21.3% year-over-year growth (to 2.2 million units shipped) was by far the strongest growth rate of all vendors. However, it was not enough to overcome a strong Apple performance as Lenovo fell to fourth. The quarter also saw a new entrant into the top five: ASUS rode 11.0% year-over-year growth to a 7.1% share to overtake Toshiba and Acer."

https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS40909316

 

[ShintaiDK]

Lenovo is in the IDC list. Ranked 4th in the US.

But I agree.

 

[Burpo]

They can't have botched the re-write that bad.. Seems purposely slanted to me.. So much for TechReport & truth..

 

[AtenRa]

I dont see what is the problem with the TechReport article ???

IDC article clearly say PC shipments fell by 10.6% YoY.

 

[StrangerGuy]

It's OK, because that's why more people are building DIY PCs, right?

-21.7% decline in DIY mobo sales in 2015 YoY

Ohhhh. Anyone still wanna argue enthusiasts are keeping PCs alive?

 

[ShintaiDK]

People do spend more in terms of PC gaming. Both GTX and K sales set record. So people buy more quality over quantity.

 

[Madpacket]

It's OK, because that's why more people are building DIY PCs, right?

-21.7% decline in DIY mobo sales in 2015 YoY

Ohhhh. Anyone still wanna argue enthusiasts are keeping PCs alive?

Wow...

Looks to be mostly in the low end segments which sort of makes sense. White box mom and pop shop stores have all but disappeared, and they used to be a large consumer of the bottom priced motherboard's. It's also possible there's not much separating low end PC's from low end laptops these days further eroding the entry level desktop PC market but that's just a guess.

Also you know things are getting bad when you have companies at CES this year spouting "our keyboards support millions of colours - per key!". I think this is what you call a "Jumping the Shark" moment.

 

[MrTeal]

They can't have botched the re-write that bad.. Seems purposely slanted to me.. So much for TechReport & truth..

Why would TechReport be purposely slanted against Lenovo? They still included them in the global sales, just nixed them from the US segment. While it's possible Jeff Kampman really hates Lenovo, I usually lean towards sloppy and/or lazy editing on a minor story that just created a mistake unless there's something to really indicate otherwise.

 

[AnitaPeterson]

Take a look at the BBC story, which combines IDC and Gartner analyses...

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35299246

If you blink while reading it, you'll miss a real reason for the decline - and no, it's NOT the emergence of mobile devices, as they'd like to suggest: "longer lifecycles for PCs"

 

[moonbogg]

It doesn't help that people keep their CPU's for 5 years now and aren't affected by it in any practical way. Instead, people spend their money on mobile garbage. Mobile has always been garbage and is still garbage.

 

[myocardia]

If you blink while reading it, you'll miss a real reason for the decline - and no, it's NOT the emergence of mobile devices, as they'd like to suggest: "longer lifecycles for PCs"

Exactly. Pretty much every person in the last few years, including this past year, who has made a thread in CPUs & Overclocking, asking whether they "should" replace their 2500k/2600k has been told that unless their motherboard is starting to fail, there was not much need to replace it. These are 5 year old processors.

 

[ShintaiDK]

I would say SB to SKL is a good upgrade. Debateable or not. However that is still a 4 year cycle in the best case. Assuming you still demand high end performance. And I can easily see people with SKL moving to 5 or 6 years in the same compare.

I still have my S3 Mini for the same reason, nothing worth upgrading for. I cleaned it for Google/Samsung sabotages and it runs like a dream again.

 

[CHADBOGA]

I would say SB to SKL is a good upgrade. Debateable or not. However that is still a 4 year cycle in the best case. Assuming you still demand high end performance. And I can easily see people with SKL moving to 5 or 6 years in the same compare.

I jokingly say that I hope my Ivy Bridge i5 3570K overclocked to a modest 4Ghz, will last me 10 years.

In June or July of this year, it will be 4yrs old and my system is still fast as blazes.

Factor in that this generation of consoles don't particularly push the hardware envelope, it likely means that my CPU won't prevent me from playing any games that come out any time soon.

The only thing I will need to do is upgrade my GPU sometime in the next year or three.

 

[Techhog]

It's OK, because that's why more people are building DIY PCs, right?

-21.7% decline in DIY mobo sales in 2015 YoY

Ohhhh. Anyone still wanna argue enthusiasts are keeping PCs alive?

What are you trying to prove here?

 

[VirtualLarry]

So, if PC shipments declined 10% YoY industry-wide, what about DIY enthusiast parts? Does that mean that they were in decline too? Or is that report just talking about OEM name-brand PCs? (Which, IMHO, were always mostly garbage.)

 

[ShintaiDK]

So, if PC shipments declined 10% YoY industry-wide, what about DIY enthusiast parts? Does that mean that they were in decline too? Or is that report just talking about OEM name-brand PCs? (Which, IMHO, were always mostly garbage.)

Its already in the thread

DIY dropped 21.7% YoY.

"Enthusiast" parts however is up, record GTX and K sales for example.

 

[Gikaseixas]

If you blink while reading it, you'll miss a real reason for the decline - and no, it's NOT the emergence of mobile devices, as they'd like to suggest: "longer lifecycles for PCs"

Bingo
That's the number one reason why but there are other factors such as weak economies around the world.

 

[Fjodor2001]

People do spend more in terms of PC gaming.

Yep.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3021...and-laptops-thrive-in-slumping-pc-market.html

Swanky gaming PCs thrive in slumping computer market

PC shipments totaled 71.9 million units during the fourth quarter last year, declining by 10.6 percent compared to the fourth quarter of 2014, according to a study released by IDC on Tuesday.

But high-end gaming PCs are the fastest-growing segment alongside all-in-one PCs, IDC analysts said. Gamers upgrade hardware much more quickly than other users and are typically not affected by the industry trends that led to a decline in PC shipments overall.

For one, smartphones and tablets haven't replaced gaming PCs, as has happened with mainstream PCs, said Lewis Ward, research director for gaming at IDC.

Gamers also aren't price-sensitive, and are willing to spend to get the latest and greatest technologies. Many gaming systems are built by enthusiasts at home.

Though a small share of the overall PC market, gamers also upgrade computers much more quickly than users of regular PCs. Intel last week estimated that gamers refresh PCs roughly every two years. It also estimated that enthusiast gaming PC shipments are growing at about 26 percent per year.

IDC couldn't provide specific growth numbers for gaming PCs, but said it's a relatively small segment of the overall PC market.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Take a look at the BBC story, which combines IDC and Gartner analyses...

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35299246

If you blink while reading it, you'll miss a real reason for the decline - and no, it's NOT the emergence of mobile devices, as they'd like to suggest: "longer lifecycles for PCs"

This. Where I work we have a bigger need than ever for desktops / laptops (Fortune 25 company). But, we don't stick to a three year life cycle anymore. With SSD's and CPU's having more than enough horsepower for most office user's needs we are getting five years out of our PC's these days.

 

[thilanliyan]

Every time I see IDC I think of IDontcare

Is this trend surprising to anyone? Even me, a member of the PC Master Race, barely uses my comp anymore. I spend way more time on my tablet nowadays....not gaming of course, cause you know...PC Master Race.

 

[PingSpike]

Take a look at the BBC story, which combines IDC and Gartner analyses...

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35299246

If you blink while reading it, you'll miss a real reason for the decline - and no, it's NOT the emergence of mobile devices, as they'd like to suggest: "longer lifecycles for PCs"

That's why I haven't bought anything. For awhile I was still upgrading mostly out of habit, but its been close enough to pointless to me that I finally just stopped.

It doesn't seem like much is happening besides SSDs and power improvements. Prices on comparable performance components isn't even going down to tempt you from that side. I actually stopped paying attention.

 

[VirtualLarry]

That's why I haven't bought anything. For awhile I was still upgrading mostly out of habit, but its been close enough to pointless to me that I finally just stopped.

It doesn't seem like much is happening besides SSDs and power improvements. Prices on comparable performance components isn't even going down to tempt you from that side. I actually stopped paying attention.

I was thinking of stopping upgrading much, once I got my pair of SKL G4400 / Z170 rigs built and OCed. TBH, it was a semi-pointless upgrade from my G3258. In fact, OCing the G3258 makes more sense than SKL BCLK OC, due to issues with BCLK OC. (iGPU disabled, losing SpeedStep, AVX borked, etc.)

Ok, I upgraded mostly for fun, and bragging rights, and yes, possibly it's a little faster than the G3258 @ 4.0, but by the same token, I seem to have partially blown a UPS and PSU due to my OCing, something that never happened with my G3258.

 

[Phynaz]

Every time I see IDC I think of IDontcare

Is this trend surprising to anyone? Even me, a member of the PC Master Race, barely uses my comp anymore. I spend way more time on my tablet nowadays....not gaming of course, cause you know...PC Master Race.

Outside of playing Fallout all of my personal computing is done on my iPad now. It's just so much more convenient.

 

[freeskier93]

Article doesn't mention that both Apple and Lenovo saw growth for US shipments while only Apple saw growth for worldwide shipments.

None of this should be surprising though, desktop technologies have been very stagnant while mobile hasn't. Companies like Apple are making huge performance gains every year in the mobile space compared to desktop where performance gains are marginal at best.