Worldwide PC Sales Suffer From The Longest Decline In Hystory

Since the boom of market for smartphones and tablet, things haven't looked very good for PCs. According to report from gartner, Global personal computer sales have dropped fifth quarter in a row, which is the longest decline in history. Apparently the Worldwide PC shipments dropped to 76 million units in the second quarter of 2013, which is 10.9 percent decrease, compared to Q2 of last year.

"We are seeing the PC market reduction directly tied to the shrinking installed base of PCs, as inexpensive tablets displace the low-end machines used primarily for consumption in mature and developed markets," said Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner.

"In emerging markets, inexpensive tablets have become the first computing device for many people, who at best are deferring the purchase of a PC. This is also accounting for the collapse of the mini notebook market." She added.

As per Gartner's report HP and Lenovo are the top two companies in terms world wide PC sales, with Lenovo leading by a very small margin. The two are fallowed by Dell, Acer group, Asus and others.

"While Windows 8 has been blamed by some as the reason for the PC market's decline, we believe this is unfounded as it does not explain the sustained decline in PC shipments, nor does it explain Apple's market performance," Ms. Kitagawa said.

PC sales in the US in q2 of 2013 has declined by 1.4 % compared to q2 of 2012, PC shipments in Europe, Middle East and Africa has declined by 16.8% , while In Asia/Pacific, there has been a fall of 11.5 %.

"The sharp decline in the second quarter of 2013 was partly due to the shift in usage patterns away from notebooks to tablets, and partly because the PC market was exposed to inventory reductions in the channel due to the start of the transition to new Haswell-based products," said Isabelle Durand, principal research analyst at Gartner.

"Touch-based notebooks still account for less than 10 per cent of the total consumer notebook shipments in the last quarter." She added.