PC Sales down 7% in 4Q

[Mondozei]

Whatever. I've found that more and more people are building gaming desktops now more than ever. Steam has played a big part in that IMO.

Gaming PC sales are actually growing year over year, the desktop GPU market likewise(and this was before the cryptocoin craze).

What's happening is what we all know: the casuals are either staying with their old tech for much longer and/or they are migrating to tablets.

But fundamentally, you're right. For productivity there's nothing that will replace a desktop, even if a good notebook will come relatively close. And PC gaming is actually quite healthy. Minecraft, Day Z and Star Citizen among other games either all began on PC or are PC-exclusive. Payday 2 was also developed for PC in mind and then ported to other consoles.

Having a 24" or above to work on is still without any competition and PC gaming is alive and well. The casuals are going down, however, but is that necessarily a bad thing? Maybe, maybe not.

Also, gaming in China is still mostly about either PC or mobile. They lifted the ban on consoles recently so Xbone and PS4 will be able to compete but there's a lot of skepticism if those consoles will sell in China given the culture already ingrained. We'll see! I for one love both my PC, PS4, my games on my iPad and Nexus 5 and my Nintendo DS. Variation is the beauty of life.

 

[Phynaz]

When a corporation "leases" an Optiplex from Dell (or is it a third-party?), how is the maint. and repair handled? If the the company has a problem with the unit, don't they just call Dell (or the leasing company) to fix it?

Or by "cost of maintaining those machines", do you really mean the cost of downtime when a PC fails, and has to be replaced and re-imaged?

It all depends upon the contract. We get maintenance included for the first three years. In our case we have been extending some leases and buying some out, and those are not covered by maintenance. We have found that at four years it cheaper to replace a laptop than keep it running.

 

[Phynaz]

No, I'm using unit sales figures for both

Where are you getting the numbers, because as far as I'm aware they don't release their unit shipments.

 

[tential]

Problem with these discussions is that most people look at it from their point of view rather than from the AVERAGE consumer's point of view (who isn't doing ANYTHING CPU intensive and is usually doing word processing/web browsing). In such a case, you don't need to upgrade.
This is ALL I do on the PC now (95% at least), and I have 0 reason to upgrade. I'm still using penryn that's 6 years old, and have no intention of upgrading for anything other than aesthetic purposes. I don't have to, I just WANT to, but I'll hold out for a long while still.

For the average consumer, if they have a PC purchased in the last 5 years, chances are it still does everything it needs to do for them. This isn't like years past, where every couple years, tons of new programs came out that needed more processing power. Now, the processing demands from year to year increase very little (as do the processor speeds).

PC sales will start to bottom out as people get what they need and won't need anything else. Pretty much any person I EVER ask (average consumers), they say they're happy with their laptop/PC because it does what they need. Facebook, Web Browsing, Word Processing.

Intel's move to release desktop processors once ever 2 years (instead of every year) reflects this. I don't know why people are surprised to see PC sales continue to decline.

 

[Lonyo]

No, I'm using unit sales figures for both

One problem with that is that Intel and AMD might ship X units in a quarter, but those aren't sold through and are instead held by manufacturers etc because of somewhat seasonal demand for computers.
E.g. Intel and AMD make 100 processors per quarter, but computers are sold 80/80/130/110 per quarter, so Intel/AMD would show flat performance Q-Q and in the real market it's variable.

That's an oversimplification of the way it works, but the principle is that even if AMD and Intel are showing lower decreases in sales, that doesn't reflect or tie in time wise with the market, e.g. a 9% decline in sales in the market would be reflected in the prior quarter unit shipments from Intel/AMD due to delays in getting systems shipped which include the processors.

Gartner is also talking mainly about PCs, while Intel and AMD may also be including tablets and servers etc in their figures, where growth may not have slowed as much, so there are many reasons the numbers may not agree.

 

[Nothingness]

No, I'm using unit sales figures for both

Can you provide a link to AMD and Intel unit sale figures please? As Phynaz wrote, I don't think they provide this information.

 

[know of fence]

Some software companies will discontinue XP support along with M$, so there will be a lot of forced upgrading to windows 7 in 2014. This will in the short term buck the trend of miniaturisation slow down and sales decline.

Microsoft still failed to square the circle of long legacy support of x86 software, and light and sleek mobile OS'es, of mouse vs. touch, walled off digital distribution and open OS.
It's simple really a safe OS has to be like a mall, harbouring many secure competing digital stores. This whole Steam OS horseshit, better be a negotiation tactic (or CEO lunacy) about just how much Windows approved digital stores have to kick up to Microsoft. An issue that 2 people and a bit of engineering could have resolved, instead of antagonizing hundreds of millions of PC users, eventually causing the sales decline.

Imagine a 20 $ Windows 8 RT, with all your favourite digital stores and no dangerous executables for your desktop. People would have stopped complaining about tiles and touch menus in a month.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Some software companies will discontinue XP support along with M$, so there will be a lot of forced upgrading to windows 7 in 2014. This will in the short term buck the trend of miniaturisation slow down and sales decline.

Microsoft still failed to square the circle of long legacy support of x86 software, and light and sleek mobile OS'es, of mouse vs. touch, walled off digital distribution and open OS.
It's simple really a safe OS has to be like a mall, harbouring many secure competing digital stores. This whole Steam OS horseshit, better be a negotiation tactic (or CEO lunacy) about just how much Windows approved digital stores have to kick up to Microsoft. An issue that 2 people and a bit of engineering could have resolved, instead of antagonizing hundreds of millions of PC users, eventually causing the sales decline.

Imagine a 20 $ Windows 8 RT, with all your favourite digital stores and no dangerous executables for your desktop. People would have stopped complaining about tiles and touch menus in a month.

People didnt want RT. They wanted x86 and x86 compability. Nomatter the cost.

RT was an OS that should never have been developed. Even Android wants x86.

 

[VirtualLarry]

People didnt want RT. They wanted x86 and x86 compability. Nomatter the cost.

RT was an OS that should never have been developed. Even Android wants x86.

I want to know where all of the Ubuntu (x64) tablets are.

 

[Morbus]

I'll tell you all my story. It's the story of a 26 years old who has been an hardcore PC user for 12 years. And I only ever bought ONE PC. That's ONE PC for the statistics for 12 years... And maybe not even one, because it was custom built in the shop, so it probably didn't register.

And why have I only bought the one? Because ever since I was 14, I've been upgrading my main machine, and building new machines out of the spare parts. Now, I have 5 PCs running in my house: my own, my dad's, my sis', our HTPC and my recording station. That's 5 different machines that all originated, one way or another, from my original Athlon XP 2600+ Thoroughbred... A whole family of 3 powered by a single computer that probably didn't even register as a purchase.

I imagine that my story is shared with many hardcore PC users. And we are growing in number. The proof is that PC gaming is stronger than ever. That's not to say that that PC sales numbers are misleading, I have no doubt they are falling, but we must take into account that there are people like me. There is no equivalent for tablets or phones or whatever, so PC sales numbers are always at a disadvantage.

Just saying.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Just saying.

So what you are saying is that the enthusiast market segment is growing, but wouldn't show up in any of the branded OEM market reports. Fair enough. But the enthusiast segment is what, 5% at most of the PC-buying public? (Ok, I'm being overly-generous here, I was going to say 1%.)

But whatever increase in that segment is happening, is not going to stem the tide of the "casuals" ditching the desktop PC, for a laptop or tablet.

 

[DaZeeMan]

This doesn't surprise me. It wasn't that long ago when I was attending conferences and such that you'd have a whole bunce of laptops in the room. In the last couple of years though, I've noticed the shift, and that tablets are now the order of the day, with the occasional laptop. Note that the conferences I am referring to aren't tech related. Indeed, I no longer tote a laptop to these conferences and to various meetings, mainly because I was issued an Ipad which meets my needs in those situations.

And I see a fair number of tablet keyboard cases as well, of course. What with tablets being lighter, more convenient to stow away in a backpack/less space, and pretty much expected by the colleagues at this point. It's no small wonder why we see laptop sales plummeting. Sure, us power users will still need laptops, but we seem to be a rather small minority in the consumer market.

I don't ever see laptops going away completely, though. Especially in more 'ruggedized' situations such as police patrol work, military applications, and such. For the next few years at least, IMHO tablets as a whole just aren't 'ready' for such intensive applications.

 

[biostud]

Yep. And the doubleflop with Win8 and Win8.1 havent helped either.

Yeah, don't see any companies want to deal with Modern UI and the learning curve/lost work hours associated with that.

 

[Qwertilot]

One thing which perhaps isn't clear yet is how much of this is down to cheap laptops having been quite utterly awful to use (and big/heavy) and how much is down to fundamental form factor preferences.

Likely a mixture. Chromebooks have got usable, very light laptops down to tablet prices and seem to be doing quite nicely for themselves now.

 

[Tsavo]

One thing which perhaps isn't clear yet is how much of this is down to cheap laptops having been quite utterly awful to use (and big/heavy) and how much is down to fundamental form factor preferences.

Likely a mixture. Chromebooks have got usable, very light laptops down to tablet prices and seem to be doing quite nicely for themselves now.

Not sure, but I'd guess that people aren't buying junk boxes in droves like they used to. Apple/homebuilts/Lenovo/Tablet_x replacing the billions of crap Dell/HP stuff. Moreso tabs replacing crap laptops and even some desktops.

 

[DaZeeMan]

Of course, the other reason PC sales are down is because systems aren't really all that much more powerful than say 3-4 years ago. At least not for the casual user that is looking for word processing, accounting, internet browsing and the occasional game. The days of huge breakthroughs in performance are behind us at the moment.

Sure, battery life in laptops has improved, but if you tote a power pack with you anyways (I usually do), that doesn't really matter in a lot of situations. Most consumers can easily make do with the laptop they have, if it has been acquired within the last few years.

Storage is the bigger factor. Consumers can often upgrade their own storage at reasonable prices, hence again they can easily make do with the computer they have if they are on a budget.

As someone alluded to above, the number of people currently out of work in America and a number of other countries also comes into play. If you aren't making a lot of money, well you make do with what you have.

Typed on a circa 2007 laptop.

 

[ShintaiDK]

As someone alluded to above, the number of people currently out of work in America and a number of other countries also comes into play. If you aren't making a lot of money, well you make do with what you have.

Look at the average household savings in countries since the crisis and you see the issue. In short, the main reason is people are sitting on their money instead of spending like they used to. This applies to almost all segments, not just PCs. Smartphones and somewhat tablets still lives in a little different world. But thats mainly because they dont last long and people feel a trend need. However it is on the change too as well.

In a little country like Denmark alone, consumers "lack" to spend something like 40B$ in all segments since the crisis. And thats excluding businesses.

 

[Morbus]

So what you are saying is that the enthusiast market segment is growing, but wouldn't show up in any of the branded OEM market reports.

No, I'm saying PART of the enthusiast market segment MAY be growing, but we'll never know by these figures. But still, close enough.

But the enthusiast segment is what, 5% at most of the PC-buying public? (Ok, I'm being overly-generous here, I was going to say 1%.)

I have absolute no idea. Though I'd imagine calling someone an enthusiast just because he's strapped for cash and upgrades his PCs rather than buying a new one is a stretching it a bit. He's an initiate, not an enthusiast.

But whatever increase in that segment is happening, is not going to stem the tide of the "casuals" ditching the desktop PC, for a laptop or tablet.

Of course not. And, to be fair, it's not just the "casuals" we're talking about in these statistics. Enterprise costumers are also a big chunk of the market and they can't be forgotten.

As for the casuals, I hate them with a passion. I hated them back when they were computer illiterates, and now that they still are computer illiterates and are shifting towards mobile devices, I hate them all the same.

Never mind that the boom they caused through the late 10's helped the enthusiasts, the gamers and the corporate see their PC world increase. I hate casuals.

 

[Techhog]

The flaw is in the assumption that tablet means ARM and Apple/Android. Wintel will continue to move towards tablets, which will hasten "the decline of the PC" but not with the result many are expecting(ie the death of Wintel).

Even Windows tablets have major limitations. They won't be completely replacing laptops and desktops anytime soon.

 

[KingFatty]

Another effect can be workplaces. I can say that my employer recently switched from a 3-year replacement cycle to a 4-year replacement cycle on computers (we use laptops and docking stations). So that's for hundreds of thousands of employees.

Now, I guess that means my employer automatically reduced its purchases of laptops by whatever percent that is, because the laptops are still usable for longer periods of time, because the software still runs on them.

 

[lefty2]

Where are you getting the numbers, because as far as I'm aware they don't release their unit shipments.

Yes they do. Look in the detailed version of the quarterly report and you will find them

 

[lefty2]

One problem with that is that Intel and AMD might ship X units in a quarter, but those aren't sold through and are instead held by manufacturers etc because of somewhat seasonal demand for computers.
E.g. Intel and AMD make 100 processors per quarter, but computers are sold 80/80/130/110 per quarter, so Intel/AMD would show flat performance Q-Q and in the real market it's variable.

That's an oversimplification of the way it works, but the principle is that even if AMD and Intel are showing lower decreases in sales, that doesn't reflect or tie in time wise with the market, e.g. a 9% decline in sales in the market would be reflected in the prior quarter unit shipments from Intel/AMD due to delays in getting systems shipped which include the processors.

Gartner is also talking mainly about PCs, while Intel and AMD may also be including tablets and servers etc in their figures, where growth may not have slowed as much, so there are many reasons the numbers may not agree.

Well, I've seen this discrepency going on over the last 3 quarters. So, the CPUs would have to worked their way though the channel by then and appear in an end product.
Intel reports server, PC and tablets seperately. While AMD does indeed report server sales in PC group, the amount of server sales would be too small to expain the discrepancy.

 

[Nothingness]

Yes they do. Look in the detailed version of the quarterly report and you will find them

Ha yes page 9 in the report: http://files.shareholder.com/downlo...0e6cb094340b/Earnings Release Q3 2013 r62.pdf

Not really the number of CPUs, but it says the number of units in PC client group went down 5% during the first 3 quarters of 2013 (servers went up 4%).

 

[OVerLoRDI]

I actually sell quite a lot of Dell equipment through my job (our company has a ridiculously amazing reseller agreement, no idea how my director landed it) and sales for Desktops/Laptops seem to be a still pretty solid, especially as a lot of government contractors are trying to get rid of all their XP machines for security reasons. Plus, just take a look at the RFP government market, you have major cities/school districts putting out RFPs for 1000s of desktops.

The market is definitely very mature, but a lot of major organizations are on 3-4 year refresh cycles and the tasks their users are performing are just not at all suited for mobile (Excel/Word, Engineering, Design, etc)

 

[pablo87]

This PC sales report was only useful in a quasi exclusive x86/Windows desktop/notebook world.