PC Shipments Continue To Decline For Fifth Year

PC sales have continued to decline for a fifth year in a row.

For 2016, worldwide PC shipments declined by 6.2% compared to the year before, falling to 269.7m.

In Q4 of 2016, PC shipments also fell by 3.7% compared to 2015, according to new Gartner data.

PC sales have declined every year since 2012.

Speaking about this trend, Gartner analyst Mikako Kitagawa said: “The broad PC market has been static as technology improvements have not been sufficient to drive real market growth. There have been innovative form factors like 2-in-1s and thin and light notebooks, as well as technology improvements, such as longer battery life.

“This end of the market has grown fast, led by engaged PC users who put high priority on PCs. However, the market driven by PC enthusiasts is not big enough to drive overall market growth.

“There is the other side of the PC market, where PCs are infrequently used. Consumers in this segment have high dependency on smartphones, so they stretch PC life cycles longer.

“This side of the market is much bigger than the PC enthusiast segment; thus, steep declines in the infrequent PC user market offset the fast growth of the PC enthusiast market.”

Despite the decline, Gartner did say there were some opportunities for growth in the market – with the engaged PC user market, business market and gaming – but this will not prevent the overall decline of the market.

And although overall PC sales have declined around the world, in Q4 2016, four of the top six vendors – Lenovo, HP, Dell and Asus – saw an increase in shipments.

Read the full report here.