Based on the Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker report of the International Data Corporation, the decline of the PC market will be slowing down.
While the earlier forecast of a 6 percent decline in global shipments of PCs will not be reached, the PC industry should not be celebrating yet, as shipments are still estimated to decline by 3.7 percent for the year.
From the 315 million PC units shipped last year, the expectation for shipments made by PC makers this year stands at 303 million units.
The IDC states that shipments for PCs in emerging markets remain challenged by the competition against alternate tech devices, along with several economic and political issues. However, the demand for PCs through a rejuvenated interest on them within mature markets aided in boosting sales for the year's first six months, along with improving the outlook for the remaining six months.
Within the mature markets, the shipments of PCs are now expected to have a growth rate of 5.6 percent for the year, which would be the highest growth posted by the PC market since 2010, as both commercial and consumer segments currently show growth. However, for emerging markets, expectations have slightly been decreased due to the instability of conditions, including economic statuses, of countries within Latin America, the Asia-Pacific, and the CEMA (Central Europe, Middle East and Africa) regions.
The main driver of the PC market is still expenditures made by companies. However, the revisions of expectations made by the IDC are based on the upgrades being made after Microsoft announced its end of support for the aging Windows XP operating system and the increasing sales for Google's Chromebooks.
"Programs to reduce PC prices, such as Windows 8.1 with Bing, have helped to improve PC shipments in some segments," said Worldwide PC Trackers senior research analyst Jay Chou.
As per Chou, the PC market has increased its speed of innovation, along with a higher focus on the product's prices, as consumers shifted towards using mobile computers.
Worldwide PC Trackers Vice President Loren Loverde, in addition, noted the decline of competition from tablet computers, pointing to the future with the pending release of Windows 9 by 2015 as an event that could increase worldwide demand for PCs.
However, Loverde pointed out that it would be difficult to estimate the impact of the release of the next version of Microsoft's operating system until more details about Windows 9 is revealed.
"For the moment, we continue to see PC demand coming primarily from replacements with overall shipments declining slightly through the end of the forecast," Loverde concludes.
