Microsoft recently launched Windows 10 to the public, but it looks like that won’t be enough to help increase PC shipments next year as IDC estimates PC shipments will fall by -8.7% in 2015 and not stabilize until 2017.
PC shipments aren’t the only tech item on the decline either. Tablet sales are expected to decline even faster than IDC’s previous forecast of a 3.8%. The firm currently projects tablet shipments will drop 8% in 2015, however there is a silver lining for Apple.The 2-in-1 tablet market is expected to grow 86.5% in 2015, right as Apple’s preparing to launch the iPad Pro.
Microsoft has dominated the 2-in-1 tablet market the past few years with the Surface, but the segment still hasn’t really taken off with professionals. With the iPad Pro’s introduction on the horizon, IDC’s tablet research director, Jean Philippe Bouchard, says that the commercial sector will have a strong impact on the rise of 2-in-1s.
“It will take some time but we expect that once IT departments are done evaluating Windows 10 and the awaited iPad Pro, they will start migrating some their portable PC and tablet installed base towards 2-in-1’s, which will accelerate the adoption of the form factor.
As far as PC shipments’ bigger than expected drop, IDC says a ‘stubbornly large inventory of notebooks’ and the decline of major currencies relative to the US dollar are to blame. IDC is optimistic about a modest recovery happening in 2017, but for now free upgrades of Windows 10, and a dearth of new PC models make it unlikely that the PC industry will grow through 2016.
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Buster Hein is a freelance writer who lives in Phoenix, Arizona. Twitter: @bst3r.
13 responses to “Tablet and PC shipments expected to decline faster than expected”
I think people are just getting tired of trying to keep up with the next-best-thing, ignoring the hype, & holding onto their tablets & PC’s longer. I’m getting tired of shelling out $800 for an iPhone, only to be told 5 months later that the NEXT one will be so much better than what I just bought.
Boo hoo. Then don’t shell out the money. As technology progresses and new, more advanced models come out, should companies not push them on you to try to sell them? This applies to pretty much everything in our material world, right? Would you prefer, “The NEW Chevy Bolt! It’s better than the last one, but, uh, if your present car still runs OK, don’t-worry-about-it?”
The problem with iPad sales is that word has gotten out that if you buy an iPad it will be crippled in performance within a year ( I believe purposely to generate iPhone like sales every couple of years) after one full iOS version update and quickly gets worse with each subsequent update. They will also have an awful browsing experience with very slow performance with many web sites constantly crashing, tabs reloading with information they spent time typing in, pinch to zoom no longer working on most sites, and cut/copy/paste usually broken on most sites. In a nutshell, the browsing experience on the iPad is a freakin nightmare. the of course there are many other bugs, such as inconstant AirPlay. it boggles the mind how awful iOS has been after iOS 6, the last good version of iOS in terms of consistent and expected performance and bugs. Now iOS is a bug ridden, broken, bloated nightmare. Truly awful software.
My iPad 4 was an awesome device with iOS 6 and after iOS 7 things went downhill real quick. Today on the latest version of iOS 8, my iPad 4’s performance and stability is a freakin joke. It is truly mind boggling that a company with the kind of money that Apple has continues to put out such awful software. I don’t think it is a coincidence that this all started shortly after Steve Jobs passed away and Scott Forstall (former head of iOS) was fired. I used to recommend the iPad to anyone even remotely interested and got many people to buy one. I no longer do that. In fact, I now tell them to stay away until Tim Cook gets a clue on how bad the iPad experience quickly becomes. No doubt he always has a brand new iPad so at least the speed will not be a problem. Even still, I’m amazed he hasn’t noticed how many bugs and broken features are present. I guess he only reads his e-mail on his.
Both of my children love their iPads as well as my wife and actually haven’t experienced anything like you have described. Even the iPad 2 updated to the latest OS that I use really doesn’t have much issues. It does feel a bit slower on some tasks, but that is to be expected as it is an older model. Hell my PowerMacG5 feels sluggish compared to my new(ish) iMac. That just the way technology has always worked… new replaces old. I still long for the days of OS 9 on my PowerComputing clone playing Marathon. :)
A child simply games will likely never notice what I described. My bet is also that your wife is a light user, and/or one that doesn’t know the difference between good and bad performance.
There is also a huge difference in timespan between a current iMac and a “PowerMacG5.” What I have been highlight is iPads getting crippled that are just 2 years old!!
Well your assumption of my wife’s light use is a bit off and certainly by my children’s usage, you’re way off. Maybe in your family only men can only use such devices as intended.
But for my family… Games? Sure games are played and run well. But also browsing the web/youtube, various social media and video’s for hours on end, I’m willing to bet my family is pushing the iPads just as hard or even harder than most people. The iPads perform very well. All of them moving towards being a year or two old. So I respectfully disagree with your statement… “if you buy an iPad it will be crippled in performance within a year”. I’m just not seeing it.
My iPad2 is 2+ years and is hardly crippled. Slower than the newest one we have? Well yeah… but again it’s 2 years older but certainly does everything I ask it to do. In other words, I haven’t felt the need to replace it yet. (but that day is coming)
If you have an iPad that is a year old and is “crippled”, I feel for you man, I’m just glad I don’t have the same experience.
I’m with FultonKBD on this. I’ve owned an iPad 2 for a while now and have only ever noticed the one problem you mentioned: typing in a whole lot of material on a Safari page, only to see it get wiped out upon an unintended refresh. (This usually has happened when I’ve briefly gone to another application to get information, and when switching back, the page has refreshed and all of my good work goes down the drain.
As for the other problems: I just haven’t seen them. I’d still recommend the iPad to anyone. There’s a remote chance, of course, that I’ve merely become acclimatized to the problems, and don’t notice them anymore. Now that I think of it, this Kool-Aid does taste a bit funny.
You must have very low or ignorant expectations of what good performance is on a computing device. I’ve also seen many times the awful performance of the iPad 2 with recent versions of iOS. It is truly awful.
Also, if you haven’t seen the buggy and broken features I described then you must not use such features.
You’re making an awful lot of assumptions for someone who doesn’t know me. How about this: you must be using a defective iPad. See how that works?
Maybe don’t take alternative opinions so personally, and see where that takes you.
I (currently) have a 2nd Gen iPad mini, an iPhone 6 plus, an iPhone 4s, 2 iPad 2’s, and and iPhone 5. I am a Systems Admin now, and in previous roles was Executive Support, Desktop Support, and MDM Admin at my company. Never have I seen the issues you describe (at least to the severity that you describe them). I HAVE seen where someone continuously upgrades their devices from one version to the next, without ever doing a fresh restore, and expects it to work like magic. Well, I’m here to tell you that it won’t. NO device or computer will ever function as well as it could if its just continuously upgraded. People have years worth of text/imessage history, a ton of pics and videos, countless apps with their own ever growing settings, preferences, and media, etc. All of that takes a toll on the devices and will absolutely make it slow to a crawl. But the iOS updates themselves haven’t been as bloated and buggy as you would have everyone believe. There is nothing you can say to the contrary that would have me believe otherwise because as I’ve said – I work with hundreds of these devices daily and am confident in my assessment of their performance.
This is significant as Mac unit wales have been growing YoY for about the last 10 – 12 years. Where 10 years ago Apple was grouped in the “Other” category, it is now in the top 5 and poised to rise within this august group. Look for a ‘tornado’ to occur in the next 5 years.
Never say never. We don’t yet know what the plans are for the iPad Pro (or even if there will ever be one). One thing we know for certain: Apple has been trying to make the user interface between its products as close in appearance and use as possible. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see them one day finally unite them, if they can do so in a way that ensure the user experience doesn’t suffer.
That headline is a bit of head scratcher. Something is EXPECTED to be different than EXPECTED. What?!