PC market boosted by XP death but tablets still king

12.6 million tablets shipped in UK in 2013, according to IDC

The death of Windows XP slightly buoyed the global PC market last year, but failed to save it from having the worst-ever year since records began, according to IDC, which pointed to booming tablet sales in the UK last quarter.

The analyst had forecast a global slump of 10.1 per cent for the PC market, but an XP-death-inspired PC refresh meant it declined by only 9.8 per cent.

The PC market performed better than expected in Q4 too due to the XP refresh, but IDC warned it was a short-term blip and not something to be relied on for future growth.

From 8 April this year, Microsoft is ending support for its 13-year-old Windows XP operating system and since the one-year countdown began has been encouraging businesses and consumers to make the move to newer devices running Windows 7 or Windows 8.

XP migration boosted the UK PC market too, which despite contracting 5.5 per cent in total, enjoyed growth in the commercial segment, which was up 3.4 per cent on last year.

"[The commercial segment growth was] fuelled by renewals in the enterprise space," IDC said. "2014 will benefit from a softer contraction in the consumer space and sustained business shipments, driven by ongoing refreshes and overall client infrastructure investment."

Despite unveiling a glimmer of hope for the UK PC market, IDC said tablets were the ones to watch after the number of shipments last year grew by half.

"Demand for tablets continued unabated during the holiday season with over five million units sold in Q4, leading to a volume of 12.6 million units for the year," it said.

"Growth will naturally slow down as volumes reach high levels, but the market will continue to grow in 2014, supported by continued product expansion while accelerated adoption in the business space will give the market a further uplift from [the second half of this year] onward."