PC Shipments Down Again This Quarter

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PC shipments are down again this quarter, but not as bad as analysts had predicted. Doom. Gloom. The end of the PC is near...and all that.

IDC has released its latest worldwide PC shipments for Q3, and they're not as bad as expected. While the PC market has declined once again, by 7.6 percent in Q3, IDC had originally projected a decline of 9.5 percent for the quarter. Conversely, Gartner says the PC market has declined by 8.6 percent. According to IDC, Lenovo remains on top worldwide with 17.3 percent market share, closely followed by HP with 17.1 percent. Lenovo saw encouraging growth of 2.2 percent worldwide, while HP secured a 0.4 percent improvement from the same quarter last year. Surprisingly, Dell saw its first year-on-year growth since Q4 2011, remaining in third position with 11.7 percent market share and an increase of 0.3 percent compared to the same quarter last year.
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How about this theory?

Most people who want a computer already have a computer and those computers that those people already have most likely have at the very least a dual-core CPU in it and those people barely use their computers. Most people use their computers for things like browsing the web, checking email, looking at cat pictures and/or the meme of the day, or watching YouTube/NetFlix. All of those things barely tax the CPU, you're looking at maybe at most 15% of the CPU's total computing capacity used and the rest of just wasted.

What does that mean? It means that for the most part people are going to be looking at new computers and asking themselves why they need a new computer. The answer that most people are going to be answering that question with is the answer "no, I don't need a new computer just yet."

So now, you have an entire generation of computers out there that have no need of being replaced. For the vast majority of people out there their current computers work just fine and they have no need to replace it unless it dies. Unlike us geeks here who are constantly on the upgrade treadmill, the vast majority of people aren't.

No wonder why the PC market is down! People don't need new computers. Intel and AMD are a victim of their own success with dual and quad-core CPUs.
 
Same thing will happen when tablets reach a point where people don't need to upgrade them anymore.
 
It's over. Shut it all down, and make sure to burn everything.
 
Galvin said:
Same thing will happen when tablets reach a point where people don't need to upgrade them anymore.
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That could be a while as tablets, particularly the cheap ones that people buy the most of these days, are inherently throw away devices. There's no ability to upgrade hardware, OS updates are few and far between and many of the cheaper devices are just crap anyway.
 
Not everyone is as upgrade happy as we enthusiasts. I agree that the turnover rate of pc's is likely lower due to the past few generations being good enough still in this age.
 
The current 4th gen i5/i7 have like what type of speed uopgrades? 10-15% faster than a 1st gen?
Stuff in a SSD and OC it... as fast as current gen tech.

Why upgrade??
 
ktk_ace said:
The current 4th gen i5/i7 have like what type of speed uopgrades? 10-15% faster than a 1st gen?
Stuff in a SSD and OC it... as fast as current gen tech.

Why upgrade??
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Agreed, with AMD lagging so far behind the progress of the industry is pretty slow right now.

Of course I'm typing this on a Phenom...

So I'm not exactly cutting edge here. I'm just too old to care now.
 
trparky said:
How about this theory?

Most people who want a computer already have a computer and those computers that those people already have most likely have at the very least a dual-core CPU in it and those people barely use their computers.
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You're forgetting that the population is always increasing and so are first time buyers, computers also break down and are out of warranty so a new computer is the answer. So in theory total pc sales should always be increasing, but they're not, seems like people are moving towards more mobile platforms with tablets and smartphones.
 
trparky said:
No wonder why the PC market is down! People don't need new computers. Intel and AMD are a victim of their own success with dual and quad-core CPUs.
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Yeah that's my theory as well as a computer tech what's driving people to buy new computers now are failed hard drives. Myself I'm running a 2009 Core i7-860 my computer is still super snappy and I don't see any reason what so ever to upgrade yet. I've upgraded my video card twice so far from a AMD HD3870 which was a carried over from my old build to a HD5830 and now a HD7870 I got the beginning of this year. oh and I upgraded to an SSD as well, that was pretty noticeable.
 
Kai said:
Not everyone is as upgrade happy as we enthusiasts. I agree that the turnover rate of pc's is likely lower due to the past few generations being good enough still in this age.
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Hell. I'd call a dualcore AMD64 still "good enough" for most home uses. That's at least 3 generations behind.

Plenty of people I know are still using their Core/Core2 based MacMinis and MacBooks.
 
I have a dual core celeron laptop bought 4 years ago. I can already feel the slowness.

I am contributing to this pc sales decline.
 
What are you guys with the celerons and dualcores doing on Hardocp? Watching youtube and playing flash games?
 
pharmecist said:
What are you guys with the celerons and dualcores doing on Hardocp? Watching youtube and playing flash games?
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Snark aside, a lot of Steam games play perfectly fine on a Dualcore SB Celeron 1.2Ghz CPU with HD 2000 onboard graphics. I usually end up firing my Chromebook up a round or two of TF2 while my main rig is rendering.

If I can say this as a poweruser, then you're quite lacking in perspective.
 
The PC has done a poor job of getting additional new software that keeps people on the desktop. It isn't so much of a case of people having enough power, it's a lack of reason to move up. Most people these days supplement their desktop environment with a mobile device, which has it's perks but I don't see it being the way to go.

The desktop needs a new software environment that keeps them glued to the pc something that will make them want to improve instead of just being good enough.

It's funny, half life 2 was such software for our computer business. It was easy to convince people that a certain computer was good enough to play it but if they wanted a good or a more fun time with the game we could easily upgrade them, or if they tried the cheap rout they found out we weren't lying and would come in and pay for upgrades (discounts on recent purchased computers). PC's got stale, they allowed the mobile market to bleed in, but while numbers are down sales are still very good.

I believe the next big player in software will be the one company that gets people to realize through their software that being good enough isn't something you want.
 
(Custom PCs + tablets + power of current tech + Windows 8) * economy on the brink of collapse = declining PC sales
 
" Why do I need a new computer? This one runs Farmville,Netflix,Facebook just fine."

- 99.9% of PC consumers.
 
i blame windows 8 for the most part, besides all the user complaints, win8 was pushing more tablet/surface machines instead of desktop pc's.
As i remember, Vista with all its bad PR baggage caused a PC sales decline also.
 
cptnjarhead said:
i blame windows 8 for the most part, besides all the user complaints, win8 was pushing more tablet/surface machines instead of desktop pc's. As i remember, Vista with all its bad PR baggage caused a PC sales decline also.
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I think we would be at least slightly better off if Windows 8 had booted to desktop by default. IF Microsoft had focused a little more on the backend and cross platform apps. Then maybe windows nine or ten default to new desktop would have been superior choice. The other issue is the ultrabook movement and overall quality of notebook designs in general.

Still as a pc user, other devices are simply better by being simple and affordable. Currently I have three notebooks, two desktops, one htpc. All desktops OC Core2 near 4 Ghz. Other then minor upgrades like storage, memory or video cards I see little reason to upgrade. I just wanted to upgrade one of the notebooks right when they started the ultrabook crazy and ruined battery life. Displays in notebooks are often substandard to boot. So unless one breaks or when battery life improves again to the point I will only likely replace when a system dieds and even then I am looking to switch to less overall systems. Likely one desktop, two notebooks, one htpc. I might even replace the htpc with a not x86 device.

Since buying the computers I have purchased four tablets and seven or so smart phones. Considering the cost of said devices I imagine it eats into a large portion of the PC budget. All of them work well rarely need attention and do what they are asked.
 
The software industry lags hardware by over a decade. If PC manufacturers want to sell computers they need to push all vendors to only make 64bit software so the multi core processors and huge stacks of ram can actually be used. That said, hardware vendors need to start building stuff that is drivers agnostic and follows the universal PnP api's so we the users can slap linux, android, osx, windows, unix etc on the computer and just have it work.
 
PC shipments? How about I buy my own parts and build it myself? Is that down too?

Also, I have friends that don't have anything resembling a PC. They just use a smartphone. They don't need anything else. On the other hand, I have three custom PCs lying around and don't have a smartphone.
 
Ponder said:
I think we would be at least slightly better off if Windows 8 had booted to desktop by default. IF Microsoft had focused a little more on the backend and cross platform apps.
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If steamOS can play all my games, i dont see a need to buy another version of windows ever! (for home/gaming). - Mobile devices can fill in the other gaps.

Without PC gaming, windows in the home (desktop PC) might go the way of the dinosaur.
 
.... plus, if steamOS gets off the ground, PC hardware sales will rise as people build steam boxes and vendors sell them as well. I think MS is stagnating the growth of PC's, like the xbox 360 has held back gaming for 10 years.
 
cptnjarhead said:
If steamOS can play all my games, i dont see a need to buy another version of windows ever! (for home/gaming). - Mobile devices can fill in the other gaps.

Without PC gaming, windows in the home (desktop PC) might go the way of the dinosaur.
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SteamOS can't play all of your games though, without a Windows Machine. Also, I don't know about you but I play games on a PC because I want to play games ON A PC. With a mouse and keyboard. I don't do it just to make it a glorified console.
 
cptnjarhead said:
.... plus, if steamOS gets off the ground, PC hardware sales will rise as people build steam boxes and vendors sell them as well. I think MS is stagnating the growth of PC's, like the xbox 360 has held back gaming for 10 years.
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No, just no. Everyone who WOULD build a steam machine already has a gaming PC.
 
i was not aware that steam would not support mouse and keyboard. i realize its geared towards the living room, but without KB and mouse it will just be another toy console then?
But my initial intent, was that MS does not make the PC a "PC" and if i can install a different OS that will play say, mantle supported games (Linux), then i would never need windows. It just gets in the way of gaming imo.
 
wonderfield said:
Yet probably does not have a gaming PC in their living room.

That's the Steam Box. It isn't a Windows PC replacement.
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Why would you need a gaming PC in your living room?

Wireless HDMI or WiDi for display, RF gamepad, away you go.
 
pxc said:
inb4 Windows 8
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True though. My mom (70 years old, took every programming class the community college offered while being a stay at home mom in her 40s and 50s, so not an idiot with computers) got an Win8 laptop and basically told all her friends not to upgrade until something else comes. It really is having an effect

My experience with Win8.1 suggests it doesn't fix the main issue, but others think it will be well received. We'll see.

People have a really hard time with the way metro is not at all linked to desktop apps. My mom, for example, took screenshots of certain applications settings tabs so she could mimic them on her new laptop and opened the screenshot from a network drive to see it. Win8 opened it via a metro app and she couldn't overlay the settings window since it was a metro app. She could figure out how to get the metro app to the side, but then it shrunk the picture to about 1/16th normal size instead of moving it. Eventually I was able to talk her through how to get it to open in a window, and then she could layer things so she could see the old settings in the background with the new settings box on top.

It reminds me a lot of Win95 / ME. It was capable of being a good OS, but there was a certain amount of user work that needed to be done to make it work well and consistently. In those days this was expected. These days people expect that out of the box.

Word of mouth is keeping people from upgrading. Is it a significant amount in terms of the overall market? I have no idea, all I know is that I know a couple people who would have upgraded were it not for Win8.
 
wonderfield said:
You don't. This isn't a product of "need".
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Missed the point of my question entirely...

Why would you need a gaming PC in your living room to play PC games in your living room?

That last part was implied when Imentioned using wireless HDMI and a wireless gamepad (which implies gaming in your living room while your PC is elsewhere).

Come on people...
 
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