PC Sales See 'Longest Decline' In History

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The PC is doooomed! The sky is falling! Everyone panic! The end is near! Insert your own "the computer is dead" saying here.

Global personal computer (PC) sales have fallen for the fifth quarter in a row, making it the "longest duration of decline" in history. Worldwide PC shipments totalled 76 million units in the second quarter, a 10.9% drop from a year earlier, according to research firm Gartner.
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We've also had the longest time of running consoles ports on our pc . You can start the blame there , second reason is Pc has always been the leader in gaming graphics . most games these days are still using the aged direct X 9 engine . We need a revolution in gaming technology programing wise to see a jump start in sales again :D
 
Average consumers haven't had any need/reason/or gimmick to sway them to upgrade in the last few years. Monitors are more or less the same and computers have been fast enough for the average user's needs for the last 5 years.
 
The hardware is so fast these days, I don't even OC. I say in the next 5 years it really drops off.
 
Since PCs make 4-5 times the revenue of mobile form factors (even with the much reduced volume) I wouldn't be too worried about the demise of the platform ... heck we still have mainframes, so I don't think PCs are going anywhere anytime soon ... besides, if the industry puts a big push on 4K monitors and technology they might shake up the capabilities of PCs a little and spark some new growth :)
 
My AMD X2 5000+ handles my day to day stuff just fine.
There is enough power on most recent CPUs to handle everything without much waiting.

Things my rig can't do... NOTHING
I can Play current games at very low settings...
I can encode HD video, 4K if I felt froggy
Run newest windows... YUP

Take a look at the unemployment/underemployment numbers... There's a big one for people like me...

And phones... All the power and connectivity that phones have... I don't NEED my PC for as many things, many things it's much better at, but sometimes convenience tops using the best tool.

I can see why the decline... but not dead.
I'll have a PC that I build for the foreseeable future.


Since I've had kids the $$ and drive to keep with a top system is much lower.
 
The problem with lower sales is that it's leading to higher prices. RAM prices have been rising recently due to memory manufactures cutting back PC memory production and focusing more on smartphones. Hard disk prices per TB haven't dropped for the last three years (though that's arguably down to price fixing by WD and Seagate).

Unfortunately, there's no reason for most people to upgrade their PC because the point where PCs became fast enough for most users was passed about eight years ago. It therefore looks likely that sales will continue to decline, which could lead to higher prices as PCs become more of a niche product.
 
kbrickley said:
Since PCs make 4-5 times the revenue of mobile form factors (even with the much reduced volume) I wouldn't be too worried about the demise of the platform ... heck we still have mainframes, so I don't think PCs are going anywhere anytime soon ... besides, if the industry puts a big push on 4K monitors and technology they might shake up the capabilities of PCs a little and spark some new growth :)
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People aren't buying the PCs you think they are.
 
plupien79 said:
Things my rig can't do... NOTHING
I can Play current games at very low settings...
I can encode HD video, 4K if I felt froggy
Run newest windows... YUP
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But you can't do any of that quickly. So, ya know, that's a big something it can't do.
 
I highly doubt this is due to Mr and Mrs Joe A Consumer at home not buying PC. Just like with Windows OS, this is focused on Business who purchase PC in large volume. Most Business are pushing hardware refresh cycle back to longer cycles as the PC of the last 3 years are running fine. I do expect to see hardware cycle get a bump as XP goes end a life April of next year.
 
Az Syndicate said:
Most Business are pushing hardware refresh cycle back to longer cycles as the PC of the last 3 years are running fine.
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In addition to economic conditions, I see two big reasons for that: Windows 8 is something most IT departments don't want to touch with a 50' pole and there really haven't been significant advances in hardware for a while now.
 
Sadly most the younger generation has no need of computers they just want to eat a lot of food, get free handouts from the government and play video games all day long.
Years back parents would get computers for home office and for their children to do education work with the pc. Long gone are those days... no wonder china has not allowed consoles in their country for so long; they know it's a cancer to the children of their society.
 
My Q9550 run at stock speeds + 460GTX pretty much handles everything... could I get a faster system? Sure... replace board, CPU to i-processors, change ram from DDR2 to DDR3, video card to a 660 or something... or I could save that money and wait until something comes out that I would use that actually needs much more than this.
 
That's just plain silly....apples to oranges...people upgrade their Smart Phones pretty much annually....PCs are more relevant longer .....say 5 years....so based on that, yeah...but to say that big numbers of mobile devices means the demise of the PC is just people trying to be sensationalistic...Sorry folks..just try to do CAD work on a tiny wee screen.....naught..

"People aren't buying the PCs you think they are. "

What the hell does that mean?? That people are buying ones that float around the room and are glow in the dark...???
 
My wife does pretty much everything on her iPhone. Even stuff for work! She has no need to drop $800 on a PC. I think that's the biggest reason. PC's have got much more powerful and so have smart phones but unfortunately, the demands and work loads most people have, have not gotten heavier so the $200 smart phone that is a "must have" or thing now and can do most anything you need is gonna sell like hotcakes while the $800-1000 PC won't.
 
Yup, I have a secondary dedicated gaming box that still uses an E6600 and an HD5850. It runs almost anything up to 1920x1080. A few games I have to turn down to HIGH instead of ULTRA. My primary still uses a Q9550...
 
Prices for PCs are going up, especially because of RAM. It's a lot more expensive than it was 6 months ago.

That said, I'm still building PCs for friends and family. It's not like it used to be, but it happens.
 
Also, my brother runs all the games he wants on a AMD Athlon II X2 250 + Radeon HD 6870. He wanted to upgrade, but decided to get a gaming notebook.
 
Aluisious said:
People aren't buying the PCs you think they are.
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Remember that according to SCOTUS businesses are people too :D

But seriously, the February issue of Maximum PC addresses the mobile (ARM) market vs PC market question from another angle ... that of revenue:

- Mobile (ARM or equivalent) sold 750 million units for $6.2 Billion in revenue
- PC (laptop & desktop) sold 300 million units for $31 Billion in revenue

You think that companies like Intel, AMD, NVidia, Apple, Dell, Microsoft, Asus,Lenovo (and others) are going to go gently into that good night with numbers like those

I think not ;)
 
Az Syndicate said:
I highly doubt this is due to Mr and Mrs Joe A Consumer at home not buying PC. Just like with Windows OS, this is focused on Business who purchase PC in large volume. Most Business are pushing hardware refresh cycle back to longer cycles as the PC of the last 3 years are running fine. I do expect to see hardware cycle get a bump as XP goes end a life April of next year.
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This.
There really hasn't been enough improvements that people need to upgrade.

I receintly upgraded the 3 year old laptops for one of our departments. The CPU's on the new laptops are only 10-15% faster than the old laptops (both came with the current high-end i5 CPU's at the time).
Main reason we had to upgrade, is that we needed 16GB of ram, and the old laptops maxed out at 8GB.

I'm still use my first generation i7, overclocked to 3.5 Ghz, that is fast enought to do everything I need. Even if I where buy the latest motherboard and CPU, I'd be lucky to see a 30% improvement. Not worth spending the money. Only thing on my upgrade list is a SSD, if the priced go down a little more.
 
Also they are only rating, I'm sure top brand name computers. Not the small computer companies that build gaming machines also they don't track all the gamers that build their own desktop PC's and I'm sure that is a pretty huge chunk in the Desktop market. So they are only rating this from large corporate chains' sales and nothing else. I've bought a brand named PC once and once only I always upgrade or build new.
 
PCs started as the only way to access the internet. When you start at 100%, there is only one direction to go at that point...

Anyone who thinks PCs are going away is an idiot.
 
John Q. Public uses a computer for internet browsing, email, letter writing, saving/editing photos and video, minor acct'g, and making flyers.

10 year old hardware has no problems with it, nor does XP.

The clue should be how many seats of XP are still active.

Even the hardcore guys have some pretty serious hardware that few applications can actually swamp the resources.

Without a new Killer App that requires more hardware or a better OS, few people need to replace their existing machines, and like above tablets and webphones can do everything that most people need a computer for.

What kind of Killer App could turn a 2013 computer into a dinosaur? Anything that involves 3D virtual reality that is very useful to a common user. Virtual Vacations, Car Repair manuals, remote kinetics (3D virtual reality physical training, golfing, karate, etc) that involve an instructor.

Without the software, the hardware today is overkill except for professional business applications and 2D gaming.
 
IDEA MOVE TO MINI ITX SYSTEMS AND MAKE THE DESKTOP SEXY AGAIN BY MAKING ITS PRICE = TO TABLETS PC INDUSTRY SAVED!
 
I think the tipping point is when the H/W got fast enough to stop Windows Lag. Windows got harder and harder to run, so people had to buy faster and faster computers.

Well we finally whupped the crap out Redmond. They are not able to cripple cheap computers anymore.

Perhaps we need a Win10 that has a min of 16 cores, 32gb of RAM, and at 5gb GDDR5 plus a 512gb SSD.
 
The sales of tablets will be declining too unless they start making more demanding applications. If the average person is just using their PC for email, Word, Youtube and facebook then they aren't going to see any need to upgrade. You can buy a $10 AR video card to handle all of that.

There will always be a market for PC's, but for most people there isn't any need to upgrade.
 
maxius said:
IDEA MOVE TO MINI ITX SYSTEMS AND MAKE THE DESKTOP SEXY AGAIN BY MAKING ITS PRICE = TO TABLETS PC INDUSTRY SAVED!
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Fry's and Wal-Mart are already full of <$300 underpowered mini systems that come bundled with tons of pre-installed malware to help subsidize the price.
 
I bought a computer that is size of small paperback novel and the same weight. It runs our HDTV just fine and Win7-64. No gaming rig, but has Office on it, Acrobat, and 500gb HDD. This is small enough to fit in the console of a car or the lid of an ice chest. Less than 1" thick. Hey ... There's an idea. An Igloo Notebook! Polycarbonate screen protector so you can still sit on the lid, LiFe batteries with a solar panel ...
 
desktop computers have became to powerful to need replacing, until we start having virtual reality.


i may never even buy a monitor again, just an oculus.
 
MS made a huge mistake pushing Windows 8 out so fast. They didn't give time to Windows 7 to make it into the enterprise; to fully saturate it. Now, most PCs being sold have Windows 8 that nobody wants. Enterprises don't want it because they don't want to deal with the BS to see if their programs (now known as apps) will continue functioning or not. Thanks for nothing Microsoft!!!
 
There just isn't really a need for a lot of people to upgrade. Ever since the start of the multicore era, PCs have been fast enough for most people. Then you also have the boom of the tablet and smartphone. I used to upgrade like every other year for Quakecon....but that place has pretty much gone downhill....
 
Anyone care to guess what might have caused the software companies to get boring?

Let's say you decide to build a Killer App today. A true game changer, like Acrobat, or Quicken/Quickbooks. Internet Exploder, etc.

Will you sell enough seats if it's truly "must have" application? Maybe. Depends on how many buy vs. how many share.
 
WorldExclusive said:
People are upgrading and building their own PCs these days. No need to buy overpriced HP/Dell PCs anymore.
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Enterprise still buys from established vendors (most of the time) and probably 60-75% (or more) of PCs are laptops or mobile form factors ... I don't think most people are building their own laptops ... I would agree that the desktop is probably on its way of becoming a boutique option or a build your own option primarily ;)
 
I have been rocking with the core i7 920 since 2009 with no good reason to upgrade cpu.

I find the best reason to get an entirely new pc is when cpu + motherboard needs upgrade. While it is fun to build a pc, I don't normally have time for this sort of thing these days.

Upgraded gpu twice since then and added ssd.

Anyway, in recent times it has made more sense to upgrade parts rather than get a new computer.
 
I have a iPad, and still have no idea what it's used for.

Typing on it sucks, no USB, screen is too small, can't be used as a phone, too heavy to be a reader, gets too hot in the sun, etc.

But I guess people need them.
 
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