PC market set for 'new era of stability' - Canalys

Analyst predicts light at the end of the tunnel for struggling PC market

The PC market is set to enter an "era of stability" in 2018, according to Canalys, with the decline in shipments shrinking to the lowest rate in four years.

PC shipments will see their smallest decline in four years in 2018, according to Canalys, which claims the market is entering ‘an era of stability'.

The market watcher predicts PC and tablet shipments will dip by 2.1 per cent annually this year to 398 million units.

Canalys claims Windows 10 migration and a shift away from Intel's Skylake-generation microchips to newer processors are the main contributors to the stabilisation of the PC market in the commercial sector.

Vendors are also forming new strategies to target new and existing customers, claims analyst Ishan Dutt.

"Several vendors are now tracking their customers that are still running Windows 7 and will specifically target these accounts with sales teams. Secondly, vendors will invest further in device-as-a-service (DaaS) offerings, which lock in PC refresh cycles," he said.

"But shifting from a transactional to contractual model is a major operational challenge for customers and channel partners, and this will prevent DaaS becoming a major revenue stream in the near term.

"Finally, several vendors will invest to grow the Chrome OS platform outside the US this year, with a specific focus on the education sector."

Industry analysts have been tracking the ailing PC market for some time, with IDC claiming that worldwide PC shipments, excluding tablet devices, suffered a fifth consecutive year of declines in 2016.

IDC and Gartner recently gave differing accounts of the state of the PC market for the final quarter of 2017, with the former claiming shipments began to stabilise, while the latter forecasted more struggles ahead.