PC market good news not so hot

IDC thinks the PC market ended 2019 on an ‘impressive’ note. Gartner’s press release talks of the “First sign of growth for worldwide PC shipments after seven consecutive years of decline“.

The numbers don’t lie. Both research companies noted a small uptick in PC sales. Yet it isn’t time to break out the champagne.

First, the uptick isn’t that great. IDC clocks fourth quarter growth at 4.8 percent year-on-year. Gartner puts the number at 2.3 percent.

These are by no means strong numbers. Gartner’s growth figure for the calendar year is only 0.6 percent. They are best thought of as ‘less awful’.

We have, after all, seen seven straight years of falling PC sales. In 2011 Gartner recorded total sales of 352 million units. The number for 2019 was 262 million. That’s a 25 percent drop in eight year. Last year’s growth is small in comparison.

IDC’s numbers of the same period fell from 371 to 266 million. That’s a fall of 28 percent.

There’s another reason the reported increase in sales is less reason to celebrate.

Many of the extra sales in late 2019 come because Microsoft‘s support for Windows 7 is about to end. Many users need to upgrade their hardware to move to Windows 10. Sure, it isn’t always essential, but upgrading to new hardware simplifies the change.

There was also a shortage of Intel processor chips late last year. Deliveries have only recently recovered.

Special factors

In other words, special factors account for all the increase in PC sales. And let’s face it, low single digit growth is unimpressive at the best of times.

Almost all the increase in sales is for business models. Interest in consumer PCs continues to decline.

Another trend the sales reports have picked up is the increased dominance of the top PC brands. Lenovo, HP and Dell all added market share at the expense of other brands. Between them they account for around two-thirds of all units sold.

Meanwhile Apple’s unit sales headed in the opposite direction. After years of picking up market share at the expense of the Windows PC brands, Mac sales fell a little. Apple’s share of the total market has fallen from 7.9 percent to 7.5 percent.