According to research firm IDC, things are not looking great for the PC industry. The firm says that PC sales saw "the steepest decline ever in a single quarter" this year (excluding tablets and notebooks with a removable screen or keyboard), down 13.9 percent to 76.3 million from the same quarter last year. If you'll recall, thats more than double the loss the industry experienced in the fourth quarter of 2012, which saw a 6.4 percent decline. Back in January, IDC noted that sales declined year-to-year during the holiday season the first time in more than five years. Today's newly reported results from IDC mark the fourth consecutive quarter that PC shipments have fallen.

"Windows 8 appears to have slowed the market."

"Despite some mild improvement in the economic environment and some new PC models offering Windows 8, PC shipments were down significantly across all regions compared to a year ago," IDC writes. "At this point, unfortunately, it seems clear that the Windows 8 launch not only failed to provide a positive boost to the PC market, but appears to have slowed the market." Of course, the figures don't include tablets and hybrids which make up a good portion of the Windows 8 market, so the results should be considered with that omission in mind.

IDC says the US market was hit about as hard as the global average, dropping by 12.7 year-over-year, and with an 18.3 percent drop over the fourth quarter of 2012. The firm says that total volume in the US fell to 14.2 million PCs sold, which reportedly indicates the lowest level since the first quarter of 2006. Excluding one quarter in 2011, IDC notes that the US is now in its "tenth consecutive quarter of year-on-year contraction."

As for individual vendors, Lenovo stands out as the only PC manufacturer without a precipitous loss in growth — IDC says the company posted a 0.0 percent change year-over-year, maintaining its second place spot and closing the gap with HP. But all top five vendors performed unremarkably in the year since Q1 2012, with shipments from HP declining by 23.7 percent, Dell by 10.9 percent, Acer by 31.3 percent, and ASUS by 19.2 percent. IDC says even Apple took a hit in the first quarter of 2013, with a 7.5 percent decline in growth over 2012. "The industry is going through a critical crossroads," IDC writes. "Microsoft will have to make some very tough decisions moving forward if it wants to help reinvigorate the PC market."

http://www.theverge.com/2013/4/10/4210382/pc-nose-dive

through gaf

Hmmm i build my own, is that considered? not to mention i build them for about everyone i know. the only place to buy computers is my workplace and we buy laptops and tablets.

edit:laptops with windows 7. No one likes 8 on laptops, or tablets but they are just SOL on that.

TBH i think knowing that all 3 next gen consoles will be out within the next 12 months and therfore the artificially slowed down PC evolution will finally stop and start to evolve again (because gaming PCs will finally have competition) alot of people stopped buying PCs.

I mean every person I talk to about PC upgrading or buying Laptops etc is waiting 1 year. We all have enough of this slowdown. And 2 year old CPUs are more expensive now thatn 2 years ago (Intel Core i5 models for example) Or the CPUs that are supposed to replace those are 2% faster and cost the same as the old models 2 years ago.


Hell I mean I have a 2011 Laptop that was 370€ that can play Battlefield 3 with like 26 FPS on medium to high settings.   I cant imagine what a 500€ Laptop could do.  Why would anyone buy newer PCs/ Laptops? If even 2008 PCs can play Borderlands 2 in FULLHD with like 40-50 FPS?   And people buying office PCs never had a big reason to upgrade.  So if gamers have no reason  especially companies have no reason to upgrade.

And buying a 1000 dollar PC for Crysis 3 to run with 30 FPS isnt worth it.

I usually think well of IDC. However, that is just not right.