PC shipments in 2013 dropped precipitously — and the future’s murky

A year ago, Gartner and IDC predicted 2013 would be a lackluster but tolerable year for PC shipments. In March, IDC adjusted its forecast to say that total PC shipments would fall 1.3 percent from 2012. In April, Gartner said total shipments of “traditional” PCs would decline 7.6 percent from 2012. That same month, Gartner created a new class called “ultramobiles” (tablets, hybrids, and clamshells) and said if you combined traditional PCs and ultramobiles, there would be a decline in shipments of 3.5 percent year-over-year.

The numbers are now in, and Gartner says worldwide PC shipments in 2013 dropped 10 percent year-to-year; IDC concurs that worldwide PC shipments dropped 10 percent year-to-year. Need I mention that I predicted a double-digit decline back in March? Nice to see IDC and Gartner have finally caught up with reality.

Or have they?

From the just-released Gartner report, we get this drivel:

Holiday sales of technology products were strong in the U.S. market, but consumer spending during the holidays did not come back to PCs as tablets were one of the hottest holiday items. … We think that the U.S. PC market has bottomed out. A variety of new form factors, such as hybrid notebooks, drew holiday shoppers’ attention, but the market size was very small at the time. Lowering the price point of thin and light products started encouraging the PC replacement and potentially some PC growth in 2014.

In the newly released IDC report, we’re told the following:

The PC market again came in very close to expectations, but unfortunately failed to significantly change the trajectory of growth. … Total shipments have now declined for seven consecutive quarters, and even the holiday shopping season was unable to inspire a turn in consumer spending. Although U.S. growth slipped a little in the fourth quarter, other regions all improved, reinforcing our view that growth rates will continue to improve gradually during 2014 despite remaining in negative territory.

Very close to expectations? Certainly not IDC’s expectations a year ago.

I think they’re all both wet. Again. Unless there’s some huge change afoot — which seems increasingly unlikely — I’d be willing to bet that PC shipments will fall another 10 percent in 2014, compared to 2013. There’s very, very little wind left in the sails.

Consider:

• Windows 8 was an abomination, and Windows 8.1 does precious little to rectify the situation. Windows 8.1 Update 1, now expected in the spring, may restore the Start menu and bring us something like Stardock’s ModernMix to put Metro apps on the desktop — we might even see a few Windows Phone apps make the leap to the WinRT side — but I doubt that Win8.1U1 (gotta love the name) will do much more for old-fogey desktop workers like me.
• All of the developer interest now (OK, 98 percent of the developer interest) has absolutely nothing to do with the kinds of PCs Gartner and IDC are tracking. Yeah, I include Mac computers in that assessment — Surfaces too. The sexy new stuff is all mobile. That’s what consumers want and, increasingly, ipso facto that’s what enterprises will want, too.
• Windows XP’s death won’t amount to a pimple on the backside of PC shipments. Even if Microsoft hangs the whole PC industry out to dry by cutting off support for Windows XP, the number of people/companies that will upgrade from XP to Windows 7 between now and April 8 asymptotically approaches zero. Those that are sufficiently concerned about XP’s demise and are willing to upgrade to a Windows PC (as opposed to a tablet) made the move — or at least put their orders in — before the end of the year.
• The alternatives — iPads and iPhones, Android tablets and smartphones, and Chromebooks and custom Android devices like the Amazon Kindle Fire — are getting much better and eating even more into traditional PC sales. Barring a miraculous turnaround in 2015 with Windows 9 or some sort of epiphany on the Mac side, it’s very hard to imagine PCs going anywhere but down, in spite of what Gartner and IDC say.

Gartner’s talking about ultramobiles again (I’m still not clear on the definition of the term), and it predicts the combined traditional, tablet, ultramobile, and smartphone shipments will hit 2.4 billion units in 2014, up 7.6 percent from 2013. Pshaw — if you throw tablets and smartphones into the mix, the Gartner prediction is much too low. Asymco’s Horace Dediu, for example, shows smartphone penetration growing at an astounding and accelerating rate through 2017. Three months ago, IDC predicted 450 million smartphones will ship in 2014 in China alone. Canalys says mobile device shipments will hit 2.6 billion by 2016 — which, barring a global recession, also seems low to me.

If you’re betting the farm on PC sales popping back up in 2014, it’s time to sell the farm. Let’s check back in a year and see what actually happens.

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