PC market to get back on growth track over next two years

Gartner forecasts ultrabooks and Windows 8 will boost sales, but emerging regions will outpace sluggish mature markets

After a tough 2011, the PC market is set to accelerate growth over the next two years, but mature markets will have to fight hard in the face of increasing consumer indifference.

Market watcher Gartner has predicted that global PC shipments will grow 4.4 per cent to 368 million this year. Last year shipments rose just 0.5 per cent, as the market was affected by a tough consumer spending environment, the start of the HDD supply crisis, and the seemingly unstoppable rise of the tablet.

Ranjit Atwal, research director at Gartner, claimed that although the market will remain challenged, new technologies may boost the market in the second half of this year.

"PC shipments will remain weak in 2012, as the PC market plays catch-up in bringing a new level of innovation that consumers want to see in devices they purchase," he said. "The real question is whether Windows 8 and ultrabooks will create the compelling offering that gets the earlier adopter of devices excited about PCs again."

Gartner added that of all the issues to affect the market last year, the one of most concern to big vendors should be the changing face of consumer demand. Tablets, or even smartphones, are fast becoming the client devices of choice for applications such as email, internet browsing and social networking.

"PCs will face more competition [in 2012] as we see new media tablets based on operating systems from Android and Microsoft, as well as the new iPad," said Atwal. "Moreover, we expect the shift to the personal cloud will also accelerate as consumers increasingly adopt cloud-based services as part of their digital ecosystem."

Despite the threat from smaller form factors, Gartner is forecasting that PC shipments will grow 8.7 per cent in 2013 to 400 million units. But Atwal stressed that "emerging markets are key to driving worldwide PC growth in both the short and long term". The amount of PC shipments accounted for by emerging markets, which stood at just over 50 per cent last year, is set to rise to almost 70 per cent in 2016, he predicted.

"Emerging markets have very low PC penetration and, even with the availability of other devices, we still expect a steady uptake of PCs," concluded Atwal.