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Sanjib.Acharya
I agree with Larry. People have already started to move from laptops to Tablets ...
LarryM99
I am a longtime laptop user and I just got a Xoom tablet a couple of months ago. ...
IHS: Tablet's rise hurt Q1 PC sales
Dylan McGrath
5/24/2011 3:16 PM EDT
SAN FRANCISCO—Worldwide PC shipments declined to 81.3 million units in the first quarter, down 0.3 percent from the same period of 2010, according to a new report by market research firm IHS iSuppli that concludes that rising interest in Apple Inc.'s iPad and other media tablets is beginning to take a toll on the global PC market.
First quarter PC unit shipments were down more than 12 percent compared to the fourth quarter of 2010, according to IHS.
Three out of the world’s top five PC makers suffered year-over-year declines in shipments during the first quarter, according to IHS. Third-ranked PC maker Acer Inc., which sells a high proportion of netbook-type PCs that face a direct competitive threat from media tablets, bore the brunt of the downturn, with its first-quarter shipments plunging by 20.4 percent to 9.2 million units, down from 11.6 million during the same period in 2010, the firm said.
"The increasing momentum of the media tablet market, led by the iPad, is creating a difficult environment for the PC industry," said Matthew Wilkins, principal analyst for compute platforms research at IHS. "All the attention surrounding tablets contributed to weak consumer demand for PCs in the first quarter."
And although corporate PC demand was strong, it wasn’t enough to offset the decline in consumer sales, IHS said
While IHS believes the jury is still out on exactly how much tablet sales are cannibalizing PC sales, the rising number of tablet models on the market and some high-profile product launches in the first quarter created confusion among consumers as to how to view the tablet platform relative to the PC and contributed to the PC sales decline, Wilkins said.
The first-quarter PC sales decline surprised IHS analysts, considering that the fourth quarter of 2010 represented the best period ever for global PC sales as PC shipments hit a new quarterly record of 93.1 million units, IHS said. Corporate demand had been driving growth of the market, according to the firm.
Despite first-quarter weakness, IHS expects PC sales growth to return later in the year. The firm is currently forecasting that the global PC market will expand by 8 percent to 373 million units in 2011, up from 345 million in 2010. This compares to 14 percent growth in 2010, IHS said.
Hewlett-Packard Co. continued its reign as the No.1 PC vendor in the first quarter, with a market share of 18.9 percent, according to IHS. The company suffered a 2.1 percent decline in sales compared to the same time a year ago because of the difficult conditions in the consumer market, IHS said.
Dell Inc. continued to hold on the No. 2 position over third-ranked Acer in the first quarter, with a market share of 12.9 percent, IHS said.
Rounding out the top five first quarter PC vendors were Lenovo Group Ltd. and Toshiba Corp., the only top five PC OEMs to achieve year-over-year growth in the first quarter, IHS said.
First quarter PC unit shipments were down more than 12 percent compared to the fourth quarter of 2010, according to IHS.
Three out of the world’s top five PC makers suffered year-over-year declines in shipments during the first quarter, according to IHS. Third-ranked PC maker Acer Inc., which sells a high proportion of netbook-type PCs that face a direct competitive threat from media tablets, bore the brunt of the downturn, with its first-quarter shipments plunging by 20.4 percent to 9.2 million units, down from 11.6 million during the same period in 2010, the firm said.
"The increasing momentum of the media tablet market, led by the iPad, is creating a difficult environment for the PC industry," said Matthew Wilkins, principal analyst for compute platforms research at IHS. "All the attention surrounding tablets contributed to weak consumer demand for PCs in the first quarter."
And although corporate PC demand was strong, it wasn’t enough to offset the decline in consumer sales, IHS said
While IHS believes the jury is still out on exactly how much tablet sales are cannibalizing PC sales, the rising number of tablet models on the market and some high-profile product launches in the first quarter created confusion among consumers as to how to view the tablet platform relative to the PC and contributed to the PC sales decline, Wilkins said.
The first-quarter PC sales decline surprised IHS analysts, considering that the fourth quarter of 2010 represented the best period ever for global PC sales as PC shipments hit a new quarterly record of 93.1 million units, IHS said. Corporate demand had been driving growth of the market, according to the firm.
Despite first-quarter weakness, IHS expects PC sales growth to return later in the year. The firm is currently forecasting that the global PC market will expand by 8 percent to 373 million units in 2011, up from 345 million in 2010. This compares to 14 percent growth in 2010, IHS said.
Hewlett-Packard Co. continued its reign as the No.1 PC vendor in the first quarter, with a market share of 18.9 percent, according to IHS. The company suffered a 2.1 percent decline in sales compared to the same time a year ago because of the difficult conditions in the consumer market, IHS said.
Dell Inc. continued to hold on the No. 2 position over third-ranked Acer in the first quarter, with a market share of 12.9 percent, IHS said.
Rounding out the top five first quarter PC vendors were Lenovo Group Ltd. and Toshiba Corp., the only top five PC OEMs to achieve year-over-year growth in the first quarter, IHS said.
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Patk0317
5/24/2011 7:27 PM EDT
I concur. Now when at trade shows etc. , if I am 1:1 I use my iPad to show power point, not the PC. Only use the PC when I have to now, for things like SW demos - once the SW runs on a tablet, the laptop is history. After all you can turn a pad into a defacto laptop by adding a bluetooth enabled keyboard.
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chanj
5/24/2011 8:29 PM EDT
The data only accounts for Windows PC. It doesn't take Apple into account. Would the increase popularity of Apple be one of the factors to reduce PC shipment? In addition, as more and more services move to the cloud and the popularity of virtualization. Would the virtualization be another factor that reduce the sales of PC to corporate and effectively reduce the overall sales of PC?
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eewiz
5/25/2011 2:02 AM EDT
"Would the virtualization be another factor that reduce the sales of PC to corporate and effectively reduce the overall sales of PC?"
Actually if you read through carefully, the Enterprise PC sales increased YOY. Just that the consumer sales dropped dramatically. For consumer segment MAC sales, also didnt increase much. only a few percentage points IIRC
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phoenixdave
5/25/2011 10:10 AM EDT
I don't have a tablet, but have tried them out. I can't imagine composing a Word or Powerpoint document using the screen-based keyboard. Each component seems to still have clear advantages, but they may become much more specialized in their functionality. Tablets are nice to have for certain functions, such as web, multimedia, etc. but from a total functionality perspective, the note and netbooks still excel.
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goafrit
5/25/2011 1:06 PM EDT
The best of PC numbers are past. The future is tablet.
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goafrit
5/25/2011 1:58 PM EDT
But remember that in East Africa, the PC shipment grew by 78% in Q1. So, this trend is regional and dev nations that adopt last could sustain this PC market from its immediate disruption from tablet
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Duane Benson
5/25/2011 6:16 PM EDT
The key is specialization, as Phoenix Dave states. PCs are essentially universal devices. Laptops, when new and expensive, were popular with people who needed portability above all else. Laptops were machines specialized for mobile applications.
As laptops became more powerful and less expensive, they too became more universal machines and, interestingly, desktops have become more specialized for the market where super cheap or maximum power are predominant requirements.
Tablets are again a new and more specialized device. They hit a need that was largely being not well served by laptops. It's really a new market. Its cannibalizing laptops, not because it is replacing them, but because laptops were unsuitable, but being used for the applications that tablets excel at.
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Some Guy
5/25/2011 8:08 PM EDT
Headline NOT supported by data here. The data here only shows Lenovo taking market share from the others. This seems to be a Post Hoc logic fallicy -- where's the data that shows the causal link? No wonder everyone whiffed the Intel Q1 numbers.
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LarryM99
5/27/2011 12:07 AM EDT
I am a longtime laptop user and I just got a Xoom tablet a couple of months ago. No question that the laptop is better at content creation, whether that is a document, software, etc. but the tablet is much better at content consumption, whether that is video, books, games, or similar. My question is whether they eat into smartphone sales. Already I am finding myself using the tablet for things that I used to do on my Android phone. At a minimum, I will probably replace this phone with a lower-end one than I would have previously. This is much more complex than 'laptop or tablet?'.
Larry M.
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Sanjib.Acharya
5/30/2011 12:39 PM EDT
I agree with Larry. People have already started to move from laptops to Tablets sometime back and I think eventually people will also shift from smart phones to Tabs, replacing their smart phones with cheaper ones with minimum basic feature sets for communication.
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