IDC declares PC alive and well as sales stabilise

For the past few years, top industry analysts have been predicting that PCs as we know them were dying, and with it PC gaming. Contrary to that belief, sales are stabilising according to the International Data Corporation’s (IDC) latest report, showing that shipments in the last quarter are better than expected.

Previously, it was projected that PC sales, including that of notebooks, desktops and workstations, were to decline by 1.4 percent year-over-year. This has in fact narrowed to a decline of 0.5 percent according to the IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Personal Computing Device Tracker, totalling 67.2 million units sold in Q3 2017.

This shows tell-tale signs of market stabilisation, which is particularly noticeable in Europe, in which the IDC states an increasing interest in portability being the reason for the increase in purchases across the continent.

“With customers increasingly adopting a mobility mindset, notebooks were undoubtedly the drivers for the EMEA PC market,” stated the analyst. “Although desktops continued to erode, growing interest in gaming contributed towards keeping the desktop market afloat.”

This is particularly interesting given the recent boost in competition within the CPU and GPU market as AMD released its Ryzen, Threadripper and Vega lines of hardware. IDC’s program Vice President of Worldwide PCD Trackers, Loren Loverde stated that these “component and inventory adjustments” alongside “emerging markets rebounded slightly more than anticipated, but overall results reflect the stabilisation we expected.”

Loverde continued to exercise caution while moving forward, however, stating that “the gains in emerging regions and potential for more commercial replacements represent some upside potential, although we continue to expect incremental declines in total shipments for the next few years.”

KitGuru Says: It seems to me that signs of PC hardware sales slowing down is simply because there hasn’t been enough of an improvement year-by-year on components or complete builds to justify the cost of an upgrade. Many people are kitted out with devices that will last them years, with incremental upgrades pandering to the enthusiast in us rather than being as necessary as it used to be. That being said, do you plan to upgrade soon?

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