PC horror show continues as shipments fall 10 percent

Analyst firm IDC says worldwide PC sales for the last quarter of 2015 were 10.6 percent lower than the same quarter a year earlier. Rival analyst Gartner puts the drop at 8.3 percent.

Overall sales for the whole year dropped below 300 million units. The last time sales were below 300 million was 2008.

Apple was the only PC maker to show growth. It sold six percent more Macs in 2015 than in 2014. Apple is now the world’s number four computer maker in terms of units. This quarter the company went past Acer which had a terrible year with sales falling 18 percent.

Lenovo, HP and Dell are the top brands

Lenovo, HP and Dell remain the top three PC brands. Lenovo sales dropped four percent. HP and Dell were both down six percent.

Both IDC and Gartner suggest the PC makers may get some relief in 2016 from the arrival of Microsoft's Windows 10 operating system. They hope some users will upgrade their hardware to match the software update. This has happened in the past

Perhaps people will upgrade, although there are no guarantees.

It's not only about personal computers any more

Here’s something to think about. I first read the news about the PC sales drop on my iPhone. I bookmarked the items, then opened them on my iPad for a better look at the tables.

This post was written on the iPad. These are all tasks that a couple of years ago would have only been practical on a PC.

Sure tablet sales are just as weak as PC sales and phone sales are slowing, but we now have a lot more technology options than PCs. The PC is only one of a range of tools.