PC market facing uncertain H2 - analyst

Trade disputes will hit PC sales, but Windows 10 adoption to prop up enterprise market

The PC market grew 1.5 per cent in Q2, but global uncertainty means that demand could waver in the second half of this year, according to Gartner.

The analyst forecast that worldwide shipments of PCs, tablets and mobile phones are set to total 2.2 billion units in 2019, representing a year-on-year decline of over three per cent.

"The ongoing trade dispute between the US and China — and potential imposition of tariffs - is likely to impact the PC market this year," stated Ranjit Atwal, research director at Gartner.

Meanwhile, a strong Windows 10 migration in Q2 has led the analyst firm to predict that 75 per cent of the business PC installed base will have migrated by the start of 2021.

"Product managers need to continue promoting the end of Windows 7 support in 2020 as an incentive to migrate to Windows 10," Atwal added.

The analyst house expects the mobile phone market to record the worst performance of the three device types, expecting shipments to decline 3.8 per cent.

"The current mobile phone market of 1.7 billion shipments is around 10 per cent below the 1.9 billion shipments reached in 2015," said Atwal.

"If mobile phones don't provide significant new utility, efficiency or experiences, users won't upgrade them, and will consequently increase these devices' life spans."

The life-span of high-end phones will increase from 2.6 years to 2.9 years by 2023, Gartner said, estimating that sales of smartphones will will hit their worst decline ever at 2.5 per cent.

However, the advent of 5G is expected to somewhat offset this drop in the mobile phone market, with the analyst house estimating that seven per cent of global comms providers will have a commercially viable wireless 5G service by next year.