BERLIN (AWP International) - Actually, this should be the year 2016, in which the long time weak PC market finally goes back on the road to recovery. But in the meantime also believe previously confident industry analysts no longer in it. For the PC industry, it goes into the next shrink year, expect the two large IT market researchers Gartner and IDC.The question is how long some players can withstand the pressure, experts warn.
For the doldrums several reasons came together. There is the ongoing smartphone boom, have become at the computer in the palm format main unit. At the same time significantly more consumers and businesses give more satisfaction than a decade ago with the performance of their current PCs. At the time, faster processors and more memory was still a safe purchase incentive. In addition, the strong dollar makes the computer in many countries around the world more expensive and slows down the willingness to buy even more.
Just the price of the US currency could bring smaller manufacturers arg in distress, warns analyst Ranjit Atwal, Gartner. "The manufacturers have no choice but to pass on the higher prices to the customers." Otherwise, the losses they might be too high. In the industry is mainly priced in dollars, over the entire production chain, the costs of manufacturers had increased by the exchange rates of up to 20 percent. In the long run could six or seven producers remain, expects the Gartner expert. It is precisely in the business of PC industry a certain size is important for the business to efficiently.
This was already evident in 2015. The weakness of the PC market hit the manufacturers anything but evenly. So built the three largest providers Lenovo, Hewlett-Packard and Dell market share in the third quarter even from - even if only by the fact that their sales declined more slowly than the industry average. They are supported mainly by doing business with companies.
Overall, the market shrank in the quarter, according to IDC by 10.8 percent compared to the same quarter last year. For the big three that were down three to five per cent - on the other hand the Taiwanese manufacturer Acer broke away more than a quarter of sales. He was ousted from fourth place in the industry from Apple. The iPhone comes with its Macs now consolidated according to IDC figures for a market share of 7.5 per cent - and the lack of cheap models ensures that Apple makes solid gains even in the difficult PC market.
The slump in the third quarter is all the more striking because in the new quarter of Microsoft's operating system Windows 10 came on the market. But a sales boost was this time from initially. One reason may be that Microsoft users current Windows versions offering one year of free upgrade to the new software - so once need not buy new equipment. IDC expects a noticeable Windows 10 effect only after expiry of this offer.
"The PC manufacturers have come to the conclusion that PC demand will not grow any more," said recently the experienced IT Analyst Tim Bajarin-. They assumed that annual sales will remain in the coming years, at 285 and 300 million devices. But if they - as some providers fear - slumping to 250 or 225 million, "we must prepare ourselves for a PC world in which only HP, Dell and Lenovo survive," warned Bajarin. Last controlled the big three, according to IDC approximately 55 percent of the market by 51 percent a year ago.
At the same time there are also in the PC business still quite growth areas. So put on the sales especially thin notebooks, the so-called "ultra-mobile". New powerful and fuel-efficient processors from Intel to accelerate the trend. In cases where the "Ultra Mobile" in 2015, according to Gartner around 15 percent of sales from 2017 to one in four PC belong to the equipment category. Meanwhile, try Microsoft with its Surface-series and now to establish itself with the big Apple iPad Pro and Google with the pixel C, tablets with attachable keyboard as vision for the future of the personal computer. Whether this plan will work, is still open.
===
told you so
