Posted on 05/10/2015 1:23:33 PM PDT by Swordmaker
Market declines will continue in 2015 as PC growth engines grind to a halt
Shanghai, Palo Alto, Singapore and Reading (UK) –
The global PC market, including tablets, experienced an annual decline of 7% in Q1 2015, reaching 115.7 million units worldwide. Apple held on to first place despite a 16% decline in its total PC shipments. It shipped 17.2 million units, taking a 15% share of the market. Lenovo and HP, second and third place respectively, both saw single-digit shipment growth in Q1 2015 and increases in market share. Samsung narrowly held on to fourth spot as its declining tablet sales led to Dell closing the gap in fifth place. Samsung and Dell took 8.2% shipment market share with 9.5 and 9.4 million units respectively.
‘The growth drivers that previously helped the market through 2014 will have little effect this year. Vendors are struggling with exchange rate fluctuations which is making financial planning more difficult and forcing price increases’, commented Tim Coulling, Canalys Senior Analyst. ‘These challenges, combined with a softening of demand as Windows 10 draws nearer along with Microsoft’s free upgrade plans, means PC market declines will be greater in the second quarter than they were in the first.’
Desktop shipments were hardest hit, falling 13%, with declines affecting all global regions. ‘The desktop category no longer benefits from shipments driven by XP migration’, said Rushabh Doshi, Canalys Analyst. ‘As a result, we expect to see significant shipment declines in 2015 when compared to 2014.’
The notebook market fared better, but after two quarters of falling less than 1%, declines have now increased to 4%. ‘The notebook category faces significant challenges for the rest of the year as Microsoft has restricted the Windows with Bing program to notebooks with sub 14-inch screen sizes. Channel inventory has been building since Microsoft announced the change and this will need to adjust before significant orders return’, continued Doshi. ‘Any price rises for Windows notebooks will play into the hands of Google who is making strides in improving Chrome OS for both consumers and businesses.’
The tablet market declined around 9% year-on-year to 45.6 million units, with market leaders Samsung and Apple experiencing double-digit shipment declines as demand for the category has cooled. ‘The rapid growth in the tablet market has caused markets in Western Europe and North America to become highly penetrated and shipment volumes have started to decline. Growth in these markets now relies on consumer replacements or increasing business purchases, neither of which looks likely to pick up significantly in the coming quarters’, said Coulling. ‘We are continuing to see the tablet market slowing down in less penetrated markets, where large smart phones are now replacing tablets and other devices for accessing the internet. Smart phones with screen sizes larger than 5.5-inches made up 31% of shipments in China. As this segment grows, tablets under 8-inches are declining and make up just 41% of the Chinese tablet market this quarter compared to 66% a year ago.’
Hybrid and convertible shipments doubled year-over-year in Q1 2015, reaching 3.0 million units. Asus headed the market with 28% market share, followed by Lenovo and Acer with 19%. The market for two-in-one devices is expected to continue to grow during 2015 as consumers become accustomed to new form factors. In addition, Windows 10 will provide a better user experience when switching between tablet and notebook modes on these devices.
About Canalys
Canalys is an independent analyst company that strives to guide clients on the future of the technology industry and to think beyond the business models of the past. We deliver smart market insights to IT, channel and service provider professionals around the world. Our customer-driven analysis and consulting services empower businesses to make informed decisions and generate sales. We stake our reputation on the quality of our data, our innovative use of technology and our high level of customer service.
Just hear on radio news a few days ago that more than 1/2 of Google searches were now from smartphones.
My wife and my daughter operate almost entirely from their smartphones.
They know they have trusty me, what little they can’t do on phones.
My latest hardware acquisition is a moderately priced Windows 8.1 thouch tablet (2 in 1, 11.6”), which splits the gap between full featured laptop and smartphone.
I can’t remember a conversation for years, with somebody buying a desktop.
I have not had a "desktop" PC in 5 years as the MacBook Pro not only replaced my desktop but improved upon it.
Right now I'm sitting on my deck controlling my wireless speakers with a "Jimmy Buffet" concert - from my MacBook Pro and surfing the Free Republic at the same time.
No need for a desktop PC ever again. I also have my iPad Air for the long commute into NYC - get to read my WSJ and catch up on work from the train.
Mobility is the way to go. No more being chained to a desktop at home nonsense.
I bought an M17X a couple years ago and then got an M18X the next year from their outlet *with* member coupons.
Paid $1300 for a $2300 machine.
For years, one thing after another seemingly crapped out but the BSOD *always* mentioned the NVidia card or its components.
NVidia mobile cards suck.
They run so hot you can’t touch the keyboard in the upper left corner where the card lies beneath and the heat crashes it constantly.
Finally had enough but they could not find me an AMD Radeon card to fit as they have ceased making the 18” models.
*So*, some nice manager in Costa Rico approved me a full swap for the newer M18.
Sucker runs likes a maniac.
Even with dual 4G video, the keyboard is barely warm.
Alienware has *the* best tech support, ever.
My AW does that, too.
Music plays through a BT TV sound bar.
I stopped using desktops years ago.
Mostly because it killed my back and shoulders to sit in chair to use them.
Laptop carts rule.
:)
I remember when they first came out WAY back. There was them and a complany called Northwest or something like that that did custom gaming PCs for flight sim junkies. We drooled over specs like 1 gig of ram, 500mhz Pentium 3 cpus and ATI Viper cards. With Soundblaster 16 cards...STANDARD!!
The photos from Mechwarrior were stunning... ;)
What cracks me up is how before that, us old Amiga heads used to look at Video Toaster ads and dream of some day winning the lotto and buying a Silicon Graphics system for $100K. Whats even funnier is that those same SGI boxes are still in use in a lot of places and they get big bucks on ebay because even though they are a long dead platform, and archaic by even Android power standards there are still companies running crucial proprietary apps on them.
Today ... not so much.
A lot of my Web surfing has moved to my iPhone.
I have some old PC World mags upstairs with “amazing specs!” that would crack you up.
My first laptop was a Toshiba Tecra.
I think it had 256 megs of ram.
A whopping 10” screen and a 10g HD.
I loved it dearly.
Ooof.
I’d go mad now, if I had to use it again.
:D
I remember upgrading my Dell Inspiron 8200 laptops with 128meg cards and thinking I had the world by the arse.
OTOH, user interchangeable cards were pretty cool.
I can’t do it on these or probably any of my other newer-now-older laptops.
After my Amiga, my first actual ‘PC” was a Dx4-100 with lie 32 mb of ram and something like a 200 MEG hard drive. It wasn’t a fraction of what the Amiga was. All kidding aside, it wasn’t until Win7 that I could honestly say that Microsoft caught up to Amiga Workbench as an OS across the board.
Sure it does a billion things more as did even Win95. But as a total package, it took them this long to get it to an overall level of “It does everything I need correctly”...if not exactly efficiently.
Could be worse though. It could be ‘those other guys...”
Perish the thought.
They are bad people anyway ;)
No, not bad.
Just tragically hip.
;D
Heres a good one for you. I got into 3d graphics on the Amiga (thus the SGI fetish) and used a Program called “Imagine” which was second only to Lightwave (which required a Video Toaster hardware card. $$$. And 3D on the PC platform was a multi thousand dollar proposition. So That ended that hobby.
After Commodore tanked and time and I moved on, I was up to a 400mhz Pentium and living in Las Vegas. One day, for the hell of it I decided to search Imagine and see if they ever made the leap.
Not only had they but the company was now HQd literally half a mile from my house.
I called the place up anf gor to talking with the gy=uys about the whole situation, amigas and they invited me down. So we all spent the afternoon BSing about Amigas, raytraced mirrorballs and all that oldschool Amiga stuff. They then sent me home with a free copy of their now like $700 program for the PC.
It freaking sucked ;)
My wife and have been using Craigslist to buy and sell stuff for 6 years now and it is the only way to go. I have sold a car, bought a car, bought and sold a sailboat, rented houses, bought and sold furniture, bought all of the Arabian rugs for the house, gotten rid of a ton of junk we cleaned out of the garage and barn using it, sold farm implements, hired a diesel mechanic to work on our tractor, hired a contractor to build a pole barn, and on and on and on. We love it. I just got back from town an hour ago buying five Jalousie Florida windows from a guy to put into our sheds for light and ventilation. $20 apiece. No way could I afford these new. But they are in good condition and all work.
Craigslist rocks!
At least you got what you paid for.
:D
I haven’t heard the term ray traced in like, forever.
The downside on Win7 is that a lot of my old weird graphics progs won’t run on it.
Not even with the useless compatibility feature.
I loved KAI’S Soap and Ulead 3D.
Dead, now.
I was an Amiga 500 to 3000 user and I agree. I moved to the Mac and Windows as well. In my opinion, the Apple did not beat out the Amiga OS or user interface until OS X.4 and, as far as I know, none of them can yet handle true change of resolution on the fly on the same screen like the Amiga could do. Amiga's idea of handling housekeeping, graphics, audio, and many other functions in sub-processors allowed the CPU free to do processing and number crunching and six to nine co-processors in the Amiga relieved the CPU of having to do all that mundane stuff.
Soap was awesome for FX stuff. Loved that. I HATED having to go from Deluxe Paint 4 on the Amiga to Corel’s suite. Stupid money and half the features.
Corel has devoured everything.
Corel even ate Ulead.
And my Painter X won’t run on 7, either.
:(
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.